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BRIGHT 

LIGHTS 




















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Bright Lights 


£T 

ROBERT ORR CHXPPERFIELD 

Author of “The Second Bullet,” “Unseen 
Hands,” “Above Suspicion,” etc. 





NEW YORK 

ROBERT M. McBRIDE fif COMPANY 

1924 




Copyright, 1924, by 
Robert M. McBride & Co. 



Printed in the 
United States of America 


First published, 1924 


MAR 10 *24 t 

© Cl A 7 7 7 4 9*3 


'If 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I Youth Stuff. 1 

II Chocolates and Confidences .... 16 

III Behind the Locked Door.27 

IV Stevenson from Headquarters ... 41 

V “'Why Some Men Kill’ ”.54 

VI Lockwood Sterett’s Opinion .... 69 

VII New Light.82 

VIII Arraigned.94 

IX The Case against Henry.107 

X Opened Batteries.120 

XI The Grand Jury Decides.131 

XII The Vow.143 

XIII Homecoming.154 

XIV Tpie Compact.166 

XV Light in Darkness. 179 

XVI An Unexpected Visitor.190 

XVII Treasure Trove.201 

XVIII “No Questions Asked”.212 

XIX A Dawning Hope.222 

XX The Man in Gray.233 

XXI Stevenson Receives an Offer . . . 246 

XXII Henry Keeps His Word.254 

XXIII The Light Enduring.263 



















BRIGHT LIGHTS 


CHAPTER I 

YOUTH STUFF 

DECLARE, Mis’ Moffat, I don’t see how you do 
it! You look younger’n ever!” Mrs. Horton 
bustled into her shabby, comfortable boarding¬ 
house parlor and held out both fat hands in cordial greet¬ 
ing to her biennially returning guest. “It beats me 
how you folks from the Middle West seem to keep two 
jumps ahead of the styles!” 

The buyer from Columbia, Ohio, smiled and the tiny, 
well-massaged lines about her dark, clear eyes and humor¬ 
ously curved mouth crinkled. 

“We have to! Do you suppose Sol Feingold would 
have been sending me here more years than I care to 
count for the new lines in ladies’ and misses’ ready-to- 
wear if I didn’t look as young as the happiest finale- 
hopper with a charge account—at least from the rear?” 
She laughed, displaying her strong, white teeth, and 
then sighed. “You’re lucky to be in a business where 
flesh doesn’t matter; how I’m going to> resist the tempta¬ 
tion of your pies the Lord only knows! But how is 
your family here? Simmy still with you, of course?” 

“Yes, but I shouldn’t wonder if somebody wasn’t tak- 


2 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


ing notice of him at last, though I can’t figger who. 
Talking of fat, he goes to a gymnasium two nights a 
week reducing and he dresses more snappy than ever. 
If he does get married, I declare I sh’ll miss him ’round 
the house after all this time! Daisy Larkin’s gone back 
home to take care of her mother, Ralph Best and Pete 
Cook went out to Chicago to start business together and 
Laura Jennifer—well, it got to be too plain and quiet for 
her here.” The motherly face clouded but brightened 
again. “Henry Jordan’s with me still and little Fannie 
Gillespie and Myrtle Harris.” 

But one name had arrested Mrs. Moffat’s attention. 

“What do you mean, too plain and quiet for that 
Jennifer girl, Mrs. Horton?” she demanded. “Thirty a 
week was what she drew down, modeling coats and suits 
for Marx & Lefkowitz, and she wasn’t worth half of it 
when I bought some whipcords there last fall, slouching 
on the job and making eyes at the men buyers! Where 
did she move to, the Ritz?” 

“She’s got a little flat somewhere. I was real sorry 
to lose her, for Laura was a nice girl, but good times 
and the bright lights went to her head. Put the tea 
down here, Aggie, and take Mis’ Moffat’s grip up to 
her room.” 

Mrs. Horton turned with evident relief as a scrawny, 
middle-aged housemaid with untidy hair and a perpet¬ 
ually harried expression on her pointed face placed a tray 
awkwardly on the center table. 

“You’d better toast a coupla pieces of that bread-” 

“Not for me!” Mrs. Moffat interrupted decidedly. 



YOUTH STUFF 


3 


“Nothing between meals; thirty-fours are the rage now 
and I’m still thirty-six! ... So the Jennifer girl turned 
out to be a weak sister? You’ve got another one that 
seemed to me to be heading that way, covering herself 
with cheap, fake jewelry and going without lunch for 
new clothes; I mean Fannie Gillespie.” 

“Indeed she ain’t!” Mrs. Horton asserted vigorously. 
“Fannie’s a sweet little thing and good as gold! It’s 
natural for her to like finery, and all them rhinestone 
di’monds—well, you know how it is when a young girl 
first comes to New York from a small place-” 

“Some girls,” Mrs. Moffat corrected as she stirred 
her tea. There was amused affection in the glance she 
cast upon her landlady. “Ruffle up like a mother hen, 
don’t you, when any one criticizes your chicks!” 

“Well, I kind of take an interest in them,” Mrs. Hor¬ 
ton admitted. “I’ve had lots of young folks come and 
go from under my roof during the last twenty years 
and I like nothing better than to see them settled in life. 
I did think that Fannie and Henry Jordan would make 
a match of it, and I was glad, for he’s a fine, steady boy 
making good money selling those fireproof filing cases, 
but he didn’t show her the kind of attention her other 
friends do. Free lectures and the movies and now and 
then a good concert are about his limit, with maybe a 
little bunch of vi’lets or a pounda candy, while Fannie 
likes the Broadway shows and dancing where there’s a 
cover charge. Not paying the bills, she don’t know or 
stop to think of the price, and though Henry Jordan 
ain’t stingy, he’s the serious, quiet kind with a bank ac- 



4 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


count and looking to the future. I guess he figgered 
she was too flyaway or maybe she got the notion that 
he was too slow; anyhow, a few weeks ago, they stopped 
going out together and was just frozen politeness and 
that s all. It ain’t blowed over, and I’ve give ’em up!” 

She poured herself another cup of tea resignedly and 
the new guest laughed again. 

“Which are you running, a boarding-house or a matri¬ 
monial agency? I’ve often wondered! But the other 
one you spoke of, this Myrtle somebody; it seems to me 
I remember her. Big blonde, isn’t she, with hands like a 
brakeman’s ?” 

“She’s a big, strong girl with yellow hair,” Mrs. Hor¬ 
ton amended defensively. “Myrtle plays piano in a con¬ 
tinuous motion picture house uptown and I sh’d think 
that would make anybody’s hands look like hams, thump¬ 
ing and banging eight-nine hours a day! She’s kind of 
loud and flashy, but older, with a level head on her shoul¬ 
ders, and I never had a minute’s worry about her. I did 
think she was kind of crazy ’bout Henry Jordan at first 
but he couldn’t see her and she’s too sensible to cry for 
the moon.” 

“I’ve got her now,” Mrs. Moffat stemmed the gar¬ 
rulous flow with a nod. “Cold blue eye and circus 
clothes but she’ll get on. . . . Hello, Simmy Darley! 
Did you come home early because you knew I was going 
to breeze in?” 

The front door had opened and closed and a stout- 
ish, slightly bald little man of fifty or thereabout paused 
on the threshold. He was attired in the extreme of 


YOUTH STUFF 


5 


fashion as it is recognized along the Rialto. His 
waistcoat was resplendent, his spats the lightest tan and 
the soft felt hat of the same shade, which he held with 
his olive-wood stick in one hand, was of the most ap¬ 
proved collegiate shape. 

“Mrs. Moffat, this is a pleasure!” He advanced with 
hurried short steps and his voice squeaked cheerfully. 
“I needn’t ask if you are well! How is trade out in 
Columbia this spring?” 

“Rotten, thanks!” Mrs. Moffat returned as she gave 
him her hand. “That’s why I’m here, for a new line to 
speed it up—ouch! Where did you get that Dempsey 
grip?” 

“I told you Mr. Darley had been going to a gymnasium 
regular,” Mrs. Horton remarked. “He was a real help 
moving furniture and hanging pictures for me after my 
spring cleaning.” 

“In all that magnificence!” With the frankness of 
old acquaintanceship Mrs. Moffat eyed him from top to 
toe and Simeon Darley’s rotund face beamed with naive 
complacency. “You look more like a bookmaker than 
a bookkeeper!” 

“You always would have your joke!” he protested 
deprecatingly. “Just keeping up with the youngsters, 
Mrs. Moffat, that’s the thing nowadays! If you’ll spare 
me an evening soon I shall be delighted to have you and 
Mrs. Horton come with me to one of the new restaurants. 
The latest dance is a variation of the toddle-” 

“Listen to the man!” she exclaimed. “Don’t tell me 
it’s got you, too, after all these years! I haven’t toddled 



6 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


since I learned to walk, and late suppers don’t sharpen 
my eyes for job lots being put over on me!—How 
come?” 

Mrs. Moffat added the question in a lowered tone 
after he had left the room and her companion shrugged. 

“He just wants to show you what a real sport he’s 
getting to be,” she remarked comfortably. “There’s no 
harm to Simmy, if there is mighty little else! He tried 
to take up with Fannie after her and Henry Jordan quit 
going together but she had him run ragged in a week, 
dancing till all hours, and then went back to her other 
friends.—Here’s Fannie now.” 

A slim, small girl with fluffy brown hair framing a 
pretty, baby face had let herself in with her latchkey but 
paused at the foot of the stairs on hearing her name and 
then ran lightly in. Her black pleated frock and small 
moire toque were the last word in smartness but a splash¬ 
ing lavalliere of glassy stones glittered at her white throat 
and the hand she extended was covered with scintillating 
rings. 

“Oh, how do!” There was a self-conscious note in 
her nervous little laugh. “You’re late this season, aren’t 
you, Mrs. Moffat? The styles have changed so, now 
that long skirts are in and bonnets instead of flats, that 
you’ll find a lot of difference.” 

The older woman felt an impulse to draw in her feet, 
acutely conscious all at once of the brevity of her tweed 
traveling suit and the fact that her flat straw hat must 
be out-dated at least a month. The girl’s appraising 
glance stung. 


YOUTH STUFF 


7 


“Feingold’s son came on for the earlier stock; Fm 
here for mid-summer’s line and first fall,” she replied 
abruptly, and then, ashamed of her own chagrin, she 
added: “That’s a very smart little gown and bonnet of 
yours, rriy dear. Does Ruthven like you to wear so much 
jewelry to business, though?” 

“Oh, didn’t you know? I’m not with Ruthven any 
more, but with Louisette! Think of it, Mrs. Moffat, the 
most exclusive hat shop in town, and you ought to see 
the wonderful trade we have!” Fannie’s china-blue 
eyes sparkled. “Of course I couldn’t wear my rings and 
things there, I don’t even dare put them on before I start 
for home but carry them in my purse; I have to dress 
in plain black like this, but it costs an awful lot for I 
couldn’t be seen in wholesale things, only imported 
models. You won’t find anything with these lines at 
places like Marx & Lefkowitz, and this little tur¬ 
ban-!” 

She paused, listening for a moment as a key grated 
again in the lock of the hall door and then shrugged 
at the step which sounded in the entrance, continuing 
in a slightly higher tone: 

“As I was saying, Mrs. Moffat, if you want anything 
really swell you’ve got to pay for it; appearance is the 
whole thing in business and everything else.—Mrs. Hor¬ 
ton, can I press out my cerise crepe de chine? I’ve got 
a date to-night.” 

“All right, Fannie, but don’t burn the board again, 
like a good girl.” Then, in kindly solicitude: “Where’re 
you going? That’s a regular ball dress.” 



8 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Dance frock/’ Fannie tossed her fluffy, shining 
head. “I’m going with Mr. Rogers to a perfectly grand 
affair, mostly professionals, down at Brewster Hall.— 
See you at dinner, Mrs. Moffat.” 

She tripped humming out of the room and up the 
stairs, without a glance about her, although the footsteps 
had halted in the hall. Now they advanced once more 
and a young man appeared. Hazel-eyed, with a touch 
of red in his curly brown hair, and broad shoulders be¬ 
neath the plain blue serge coat, his was a boyishly engag¬ 
ing figure as his homely, clean-cut features lighted with 
genuine pleasure at sight of the new arrival. The voice, 
too, in which he greeted her was buoyant with vigorous 
youth and his handclasp warm and firm. 

“I’m glad to be back myself, Mr. Jordan,” Mrs. 
Moffat replied to him. “You are still selling filing cases, 
Mrs. Horton tells me, and making a good thing of 
it.” 

“Just plodding along,” Henry Jordan nodded. “We 
handle all kinds of steel office furniture now and we’ve 
had a great winter. What are you doing to-night? 
There’s a dandy picture on at the International, and a 
fashion show added that you ought to see before you 
start, out to-morrow. I’d like to take you and Mrs. 
Horton-?” 

“Not me, Henry, I’ve got a sight of mending, but Mis’ 
Moffat’ll go with you. It was nice of you to think of 
it.—Heavens!” she rose precipitately. “Do you smell 
that? Sure as you’re alive, Caroline’s burnt the 
cake again! Mis’ Moffat, you just make yourself com- 



YOUTH STUFF 


9 


fortable, your room's ready any time you like-” 

Her voice trailed back to them as she waddled off 
hastily toward the back stairs and Henry Jordan turned, 
laughing, to the door. 

“Just the same as ever, isn’t she? I don’t know what 
any of us would do without Ma Horton!—You’ll come 
to-night ?” 

“I’d love to, if you don’t mind trotting a dowdy old 
woman around,” Mrs. Moffat responded. “I feel quite 
smart back home but I’m nothing but a hoosier here. 
Little Miss Gillespie looked so stunning just now that 
I realized how hopelessly out of date I was.” 

She cast a friendly, quizzical glance at him and the 
young man flushed slightly but he met her eyes with 
steady candor. 

“You look all right to me,” he said briefly. “I guess 
there’s a lot more foolish things than being a day or so 
behind the styles. We’ll go as soon as dinner is over 
so as to get good seats, shall we?” 

Later at the long table in Mrs. Horton’s basement 
dining-room Mrs. Moffat encountered again the remain¬ 
ing member of the household, a loud-voiced young woman 
of Amazonian proportions with brassy golden hair elabo¬ 
rately waved and an air of sophisticated boredom. 
Myrtle Harris was a professional at last, she assured Mrs. 
Moffat, but it was a dawg’s life and she didn’t envy 
Paderewski or any of them other artists, knowing now 
what they was up against. It hadn’t been half as hard 
when she was plugging hits in the sheet music department 
of Silk worth’s Five & Ten, though, of course, nothing 



IO 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


like being a real performer in a theater. The Bronx 
Coliseum didn’t get first runs but she supposed that 
wouldn’t matter, Ohio houses not getting them either, 
and Mrs. Moffat must come some night and hear her 
play. 

The entrance of Fannie Gillespie, radiant in a brilliant 
cerise gown which displayed far too much of her girlishly 
thin shoulders, put a temporary end to the conversational 
efforts of Myrtle Harris, and the latter stared and then 
sniffed. The lavalliere had given place to a necklace of 
paste diamonds, which gleamed almost convincingly under 
the glare of the electric lights, and a ring with a single 
blazing stone, instead of the spreading cluster, adorned 
one of Fannie’s small, animate hands. 

Mrs. Moffat eyed it doubtfully and then with deep¬ 
ened gravity she studied the girl’s pretty, doll-like face 
and listened to her high-pitched nervously gay chatter 
as the meal progressed. There seemed something forced 
and unnatural about her vivacity, as though she were un¬ 
der some strain or pressure. When her naively egotis¬ 
tical flow of small talk ceased for a moment she twitched 
and fidgeted, more than once glancing at the shaded area 
window as if she half expected to see a moving silhouette 
there. Was the girl afraid of some one? Surely there 
had been shrinking dread in that look, and in repose her 
soft lips drooped at the corners and the lids fluttered over 
the wide blue eyes. 

Mrs. Moffat shrugged and turned to reply banteringly 
to a labored compliment of Simmy Darley’s on her left. 
After all, Fannie was only one of the army of small- 


YOUTH STUFF 


ii 


town girls with more looks than brains and no great 
talent or ambition to keep her forging ahead to a definite 
goal. If she were the incorrigible flirt she seemed and 
anticipated some unpleasant scene or other now she would 
only be running true to type. 

Henry Jordan devoted himself to his dinner with an 
appetite which argued well for his peace of mind and 
afterward, as he and the buyer from Ohio strolled toward 
Broadway in the soft dusk which still lingered before the 
late spring darkness fell, his companion studied him as 
she had the girl. Young people interested her and in her 
busy, successful life she had found time to make many 
of them her friends. 

Quiet without being taciturn, light-hearted without 
boisterousness, he had attracted her on her former visits 
as much by his evident seriousness of purpose as by the 
uniform, thoughtful courtesy which seemed so inherently 
a part of him. It was safe to conjecture, Mrs. Moffat 
reflected, that he would never make a fool of himself 
over any little empty-headed flirt nor swerve, if that 
square jaw and steadfast gaze counted for anything, 
from the future he had planned. 

The fashion exhibit posed before her on the screen 
absorbed her keenest professional attention, but the fea¬ 
ture picture with its erotic star, anaemic male lead and 
hectic emotionalism seemed melodramatic and utterly 
silly. Mrs. Moffat was surprised to find her young 
host disposed to a serious discussion of it when, the 
performance over, they made their way to a soda foun¬ 
tain. 


12 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Just a lemonade for me, please.” She sighed at a 
rich chocolate concoction foaming from a near-by glass. 
“The girl was wonderful, of course, but didn’t you think 
the story absurd? A plain, everyday sort of husband 
like that doesn’t fly off at a tangent and commit murder 
simply because he has formed an ideal of his wife that 
she isn’t capable of even comprehending, much less liv¬ 
ing up to.” 

Henry Jordan shook his head. 

“I don’t know. It didn’t seem absurd to me,” he re¬ 
marked. “ ‘Plain, everyday husbands’ do that sort of 
thing every day, Mrs. Moffat, if you read the papers. 
The girl he thought she was never had lived and maybe 
he felt that the real one shouldn’t, either, when he’d found 
out how heartless and wicked she was. Maybe he 
thought he had a right to kill her, same’s he’d throttle 
a wild beast if he had nothing else to kill it with except 
his bare hands, to keep it from harming other people the 
way it had him.” 

Mrs. Moffat eyed him in amused astonishment.. 

“You think it was natural for him to get worked up 
to the pitch of killing like that, almost in a minute, a man 
who’d never before had the impulse to harm a fly? Do 
you believe such things happen in real life?” 

“Yes, Mrs. Moffat, I do.” His tone was still quietly, 
impersonally argumentative, yet it had deepened in grav¬ 
ity. “I believe there’s apt to come a time in any man’s 
life, no matter how harmless and soft-hearted he might 
be, when he’d like to kill somebody. Not just for his 
own satisfaction, I don’t mean, but because he almost 


YOUTH STUFF 


i3 

thought he had a right, that it would be better if they 
were dead!” 

Mrs. Moffat laughed outright. 

“I shouldn’t wonder if we’d all felt that way in the 
abstract, for a minute or two at a time, maybe, but not 
seriously; not with the actual idea of murder! Thank 
goodness, life isn’t quite like what the movies would have 
us believe.” 

Henry Jordan frowned thoughtfully fora, moment and 
then laughed too. 

“I guess it is a good thing,” he conceded. “Will you 
have another lemonade?” 

Mrs. Moffat declined and they walked the few blocks 
to the boarding-house in comparative silence, past the 
glitter of lights on the great thoroughfare into the dim, 
shadowed side-street where the faint glimmer of the stars 
worked eerie magic on commonplace stone and brick and 
mortar. 

The buyer would have a big day before her and long 
habit had accustomed her healthy faculties to obey her 
will, but to-night for some reason she could not readily 
compose herself to sleep. It must be the long, nerve- 
racking hours on the train, she told herself wearily, or 
the thought of to-morrow’s ever-recurring problem; the 
right choice at the right price, and not to be stung with 
a line of false alarms as Feingold’s son had been. . . . 

The door downstairs opened and closed, and a not-too-* 
light feminine footstep accompanied by a whiff of reek¬ 
ing scent under her own door announced the return of 
Myrtle Harris. Then long intervals passed, punctuated 


14 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


by slow strokes from a distant church clock, and still 
sleep would not come to Mrs. Moffat. 

Midnight, then one, and then two. . . . Was that the 
front door again? The sound had been so soft that the 
involuntary listener could not be sure, but in another mo¬ 
ment the faintest of steps crept past her door and on up 
the stairs and from a discreet distance down the block 
there came the diminishing whirr of a taxi. 

Fannie Gillespie, of course! She had youth and health 
but taxis at two in the morning didn’t mean efficiency a 
few hours later; she wouldn’t hold her job down long 
with Louisette or any one else, for that matter, if she 
kept up this pace, innocent enough though it might be 
in fact. 

Yet what did the Fannies of this world matter to a 
busy woman with her own problems to face? In dis¬ 
gust with herself, Mrs. Moffat rose and throwing on a 
robe crossed to her open window and dropped into a 
low chair. The street was deserted, the infrequent lamps 
glowing through an orange haze beneath the cold, steely 
light of the stars and only the occasional rumble of a 
belated truck breaking the silence. 

Yet was the street quite deserted? Wasn’t that a 
moving shadow opposite in the deeper gloom of the area¬ 
way? Mrs. Moffat leaned a trifle forward and watched 
for long minutes, but if some one were lurking there 
he did not betray his presence again. With a little shrug 
of impatience she returned to her bed at last. 

. Nerves, after all these years! Could it be that silly 
picture? Far-fetched as it was, it had impressed that 


YOUTH STUFF 


15 


intensely serious young man, Henry Jordan. What was 
it he had said about the murderer? Something about 
his right to kill the woman who had first killed his own 
ideals and illusions? Youth stuff, of course, but 
still. . . . 

Trying dimly to recall his exact words, Mrs. Moffat 
fell asleep at last. 


CHAPTER II 


CHOCOLATES AND CONFIDENCES 

T HE next two days were busy ones for the buyer 
for Feingold & Son, and she saw little of her fel¬ 
low lodgers at Mrs. Horton’s beyond a hurried 
greeting at mealtime; they were successful days, but 
strenuous, and, utterly fatigued late one afternoon, she 
paused in the lower hall before ascending the stairs just 
as Fannie Gillespie entered behind her. 

The girl seemed pale beneath the light flecks of rouge 
she had acquired since Mrs. Moffat’s last trip to the city, 
and there were faint bluish shadows about her big, child¬ 
ish eyes. The little droop remained at the corners of her 
lips even as she smiled waveringly in response to the 
older woman’s nod. 

“It’s been an awful long day, hasn’t it?” There was 
a flat, dispirited note in the usually high-pitched young 
voice. “I do get so tired everlastingly trying perfect 
dreams of hats on the homeliest, crossest people! You 
ought to see the cars they come in, Mrs. Moffat, and 
their clothes—oh, and their jewels! I never thought 
there were so many diamonds in the world as I’ve seen 
since I went to work for Louisette! It’s funny how 
some girls that aren’t a bit attractive have everything 
isn’t it?” 

16 


CHOCOLATES AND CONFIDENCES 17 

“Well, they haven’t—attraction.” Mrs. Moffat smiled 
and added on an impulse, “Won’t you stop in my room 
for a minute on your way up? I have a marvelous box 
of chocolates that Marx & Lefkowitz sent me and of 
course I mustn’t touch one of them; I’d like to get temp¬ 
tation out of my way.” 

“May I ?” The discontented face brightened. “I 
suppose you’ve been ordering heaps of things? I’d like 
to be able to go out and buy everything I thought was 
pretty!” 

“Even if the pretty things were to be worn by some¬ 
body else?” Her companion led the way upstairs and 
into the pleasant front room on the second floor. “Sit 
down and take off your hat if you like. Here is your 
candy.” 

She placed a huge, beribboned box in Fannie’s hands 
and motioned toward a chair, seating herself with a sigh 
in the low rocker. 

“Oh, they’re lovely! Won’t you take even one?” 
The girl drew off her slightly worn gloves, displaying 
again the bunched rings among which the single large 
stone gleamed like a headlight, and fell to munching the 
chocolates avidly. “I—I don’t eat lunch very often now. 
It does cost so terribly to dress the way Eileen Gaffney 
and the other salesladies at Louisette’s do, and then I 
have to have so many things to go out in. No fellow 
wants to take a girl out unless he can be proud of her, 
and if you’re dowdy you don’t get anywhere!” 

“Is it worth it?” Mrs. Moffat asked quietly. “Going 
hungry, I mean, just to dress to please other people and 


i8 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


have good times that tire you all out so you can’t put 
your best effort into your work and get on? What’s 
the use of it?” 

“Why-y!” The blue eyes opened wide. “What 
would be the good of working at all except so that you 
could have the good times ? I like to have the boys I go 
out with proud to be seen with me, and I know some 
dandy fellows who think nothing’s too good for their 
girl! I’ve been to the swellest parties lately and I don’t 
mind being tired. I don’t see any use in just working 
and working without a bit of fun; it’ll be years and years 
before I’ll get old enough to be a manager or buyer and 
by that time I won’t want to dance or care about theaters 
and the beaches.” 

“And you may not be qualified for a manager’s or 
buyer’s job if you don’t work for it,” Mrs. Moffat re¬ 
minded her gently. “I suppose, though, you are figuring 
on marriage, as most girls do?” 

Fannie shrugged. 

“The fellows who want to get married only think of 
sticking you in a horrid little flat uptown or a cottage 
in the suburbs somewhere, to do your own work and be 
lonesome all day and never have any real fun, just put 
every cent in the bank!” She made a little rnoue. 
“Those that take you around can’t afford to get mar¬ 
ried, but I’m not thinking of that, anyway, for ages yet. 
I’m having too good a time! The beaches are going to 
be grand this summer! I’ve got a friend who has a con¬ 
cession at the new one, Knickerbocker Park, that’s simply 
thrilling; it’s called the Avalanche Ride.” 


CHOCOLATES AND CONFIDENCES 19 

Mrs. Moffat shook her head at the hopelessness of 
further argument. 

“I didn’t know the beaches were open so early,” she 
observed absently. 

“Oh, yes! I found this in the sand last Sunday; 
wouldn’t you think it was real?” She thrust out the 
finger upon which the single stone glistened. “First time 
I ever found anything pretty; I’m not lucky that way. 
You never saw anything so lovely, though, as the rings 
our customers wear—gracious! Is it as late as that ?” 

Her eyes had fallen on the traveling clock on Mrs. 
Moffat’s dresser and she jumped up closing the depleted 
box reluctantly. 

“Take it with you to your own room, my dear.” Mrs. 
Moffat’s glance had followed the gesture. “Are you 
going out again to-night?” 

“Yes, but only for a little while, with a boy I don’t 
care so much for any more. He’s an auto race driver 
and he leaves for Detroit on the midnight.—Oh, did you 
know there’s a new boarder? He’s dark and awfully 
good-looking, and his clothes look as if they were made 
to order. I saw him last night when he came to make 
arrangements. I don’t suppose he can be much of a 
sport or he wouldn’t want to live in a quiet place like this, 
but he looked different, somehow.” 

“Not like Henry Jordan?” Mrs. Moffat lifted her 
eyebrows. 

“Mercy, no. Henry’s a dear and I used to be crazy 
about him, but he’s the dreadful, serious kind I told you 
about and doesn’t know what it is to really have a good 


20 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


time.—I must hurry and change my dress. Thanks for 
the lovely chocolates!” 

She closed the door, nodding brightly, and hurried up 
to the top floor and her tiny hall room in the rear, while 
Mrs. Moffat rearranged her hair reflectively. Fannie 
Gillespie had changed in the few months since last she 
had seen her; then everything had been wonderful and the 
simplest pleasures were delights, although already the love 
for the spurious finery within her reach had made itself 
manifest. Now she was growing disillusioned, wearying 
of the simpler things, choosing her companions solely for 
their ability to spend money prodigally. Race drivers, 
concessionaires at amusement parks, “sports”—where 
would it all lead ? 

It was in vain that the older woman told herself it was 
nothing to her; the girl’s piquant prettiness and innate 
candor and honesty as well as her very human longing 
for what she considered happiness had made their own 
appeal. What bitterness of further disillusionment 
would the next interval bring before they met again ? 

Mrs. Moffat was late for dinner and the others had all 
gathered about the long table when she made her appear¬ 
ance. Among them was a new face and she recalled 
what the girl had said about an addition to the household. 

Mrs. Horton presented him beamingly as Mr. Edgar 
North, and the young man rose and bowed politely with 
a quick flash of his bright, dark eyes. The hand resting 
on the back of his chair was long and slender but not too 
obviously manicured, and his voice was pleasantly modu¬ 
lated as he acknowledged the introduction and then slipped 


CHOCOLATES AND CONFIDENCES 


21 


into his chair with a graceful litheness of movement that 
suggested strength and control. 

He was a bond salesman, it developed, recently sent 
up to the New York branch of a New Orleans house 
and his accent held the soft, rolling slur of the South in 
his slow, not too loquacious speech. 

Myrtle Harris leaned both elbows on the table, ignor¬ 
ing her veal pot pie, as she described the difficulties of 
an artiste’s career to the engaging stranger and Fannie, 
who had put on a filmy blue gown the color of her eyes 
and long paste earrings that pulled at her small pink 
lobes, hung with flattering attention on his infrequent 
observations. But if Mr. North was aware of the per¬ 
sonal element he gave no sign, directing his conversation 
in the main to the landlady with an unaffected deference 
which delighted that honest soul. 

“You dance, of course?” Fannie asked when Myrtle 
paused for breath. 

The newcomer darted a swift glance at her in which 
she read an eager response, but he only replied quietly: 

“I was raised to it, Miss Gillespie, though not, I’m 
afraid, the kind of dancing you do up No’th. I must 
try to learn, of co’se, when I have time.” 

Myrtle laughed loudly. 

“You don’t sell bonds in the evenings, do you?” 

“Hardly, Miss Harris, but I’ve planned to study and 
attend some lectures at one of the colleges heah.” He 
smiled, showing a flash of white teeth in his dark, smooth- 
shaven face, and turned to Mrs. Horton. “I’m afraid I 
shall burn your lights ve’y late some nights, ma’am.” 


22 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Go right ahead!” Mrs. Horton responded cordially. 
“I like to see my young people improving themselves. 
My late husband was a great reader, though the sporting 
extras never done him much good, for he usually picked 
the wrong one. He could talk real well when I had time 
to listen to him and he got it all from magazines the 
folks left laying around. I always believe in education. 
What line are you thinking of taking up?” 

“Finance and economics.” It seemed to Mrs. Moffat 
that there was a hint of amusement in North’s tone. 
“Can you tell me, suh, which of the colleges offer evening 
lectures?” 

He had addressed Simmy Darley and, while the latter 
hurriedly disclaimed any knowledge of the city’s higher 
educational advantages, Fannie pushed away her saucer 
of rice pudding and rose with an annoyed swish of silk 
and tinkle of earrings to leave the room. Inadvertently, 
Mrs. Moffat glanced at Henry Jordan and was surprised 
at the look of pain in his eyes as they followed the 
slender, departing figure. Was he thinking again of a 
certain lost illusion of his own? It couldn’t have been an 
overwhelming one or he would scarcely have remained 
under the same roof and in constant daily association with 
the girl who “used to be crazy about him,” but it seemed 
evident that he was not yet wholly cured. 

Mrs. Moffat spent the evening in her room casting 
up accounts and preparing a lengthy report for Feingold 
& Son and she was so deeply preoccupied with the latter 
that she was only subconsciously aware of the thud of 
the vestibule door. She glanced at the clock, noting idly 


CHOCOLATES AND CONFIDENCES 23 


that it was just half-past ten, and returned to her report 
once more when a muffled sob in the hallway made her 
turn in surprise, then rise and open the door. 

“Is that you, Miss Gillespie? Is anything the matter, 
my dear? Can I help?” 

The little figure muffled in the soft blue cape halted at 
the foot of the second flight of stairs and then turned 
and came slowly toward her. 

“It's nothing, Mrs. Moffat, only I think men are 
horrid! Eve had a perfectly awful time and it wasn’t 
a bit my fault!” 

As she came into the room, closing the door behind 
her, the older woman saw that the tears which stood in 
the round eyes were those of anger rather than sorrow 
and her lips were crimson as though she had set her small 
teeth in them. 

“What happened? Tell me if you like. Did you go 
out with the friend you spoke of this afternoon?” 

Fannie nodded and slipped the cape from her shoulders 
as she dropped into a chair. 

“Yes, but I only went to be nice to him because he 
begged so; I told you I didn’t care for him any more.” 
She pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks. “He was 
awfully good fun at first to run around with, and I liked 
it when we’d go in a restaurant just after he’d won some 
big race and people would whisper and stare. But he— 
he got to thinking everything was settled between us as 
soon as he gave up the road and opened a garage, and 
then he began quarreling about everything, my jewelry 
and my other friends and even the way I happened to 


24 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


look at people! We had one last row and I didn’t see 
him for ever so long until just lately; but I wouldn’t 
make up with him again the way he wanted me to, and 
I only went out with him for a dance to-night because 
he was going away. And then he had to make a per¬ 
fectly dreadful scene!” 

‘‘Why?” Mrs. Moffat asked quietly. 

“Just because Jack Rogers joined us and I danced with 
him—well, quite a little. He’s simply elegant! But you 
must have seen him lots of times on the screen. Frank 
heard I’d been going around with him and all of a sud¬ 
den he got in a terrible rage and—and wanted to fight 
him! Jack’s the perfect gentleman, though, and he went 
right away and I came home all by myself. It was hor¬ 
rid of Frank—as if he had the right!” 

She twisted her handkerchief nervously between her 
fingers and Mrs. Moffat recalled the odd tension in the 
girl’s manner on the night of her own arrival. 

“Are you afraid of this Frank?” she paused and added: 
“Has he ever threatened you ?” 

“Oh, no!” Fannie replied quickly as she rose, gather¬ 
ing her cape about her once more. Her eyes had darted 
toward the door with a curious fluttering of their lids, 
however, and she drew a hasty breath. “What could he 
do except make nasty scenes like to-night? I was so 
ashamed! Fellows say crazy, silly things about what 
they’ll do when you won’t bother with them any more, 
but they don’t ever do anything, really. I guess I’ll go 
to bed, for there’s going to be a wonderful party to- 
imorrow night and I’ll hardly have a wink of sleep before 


CHOCOLATES AND CONFIDENCES 25 


I’ll be due at the shop again! I wish there wasn’t any¬ 
thing but good times, ever!” 

When she had gone on up the stairs, Mrs. Moffat re¬ 
turned to her task, but she found it impossible to con¬ 
centrate on Poiret twills and tricotines, marvellas and 
duvetyn. The pretty, shallow young thing who had just 
left her was dominated by a serious emotion at last, and 
that emotion was fear! Of whom or what was she 
afraid? The unhappy scene of that evening which she 
had so naively recounted had meant only a “horrid” 
quarter of an hour to her, nothing more, yet at the first 
suggestion that she might have been threatened, Fannie 
had betrayed her apprehension even as she quickly—too 
quickly—denied it and then retreated precipitately. If 
the girl were in any actual trouble-? 

She decided to have a frank but tactful talk with her 
on the morrow and learn what advice or help she might 
offer and in the meantime the report for Feingold & Son 
must be put through. Forcing the problem of her young 
fellow-lodger resolutely from her thoughts, Mrs. Moffat 
wrote for an hour with her accustomed conciseness and 
exactitude and then retired to sleep soundly until Agnes 
knocked upon her door. 

“Ha’ past seven, Mis’ Moffat.” To her still drowsy 
perceptions it seemed that there was an odd quaver in 
the usually thin, sharp tones. “Will you dress real quick, 
please, ma’am?” 

“What’s the matter?” Thoroughly awake on the in¬ 
stant, Mrs. Moffat rose and threw her robe about her^ 
“Is anything wrong, Agnes?” 


26 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“I don’t know. I’m afraid so.” The voice quavered 
still more and Mrs. Moffat opened the door to find Agnes 
wringing her hands, with her apron askew and her wisps 
of hair standing out in greater disorder than ever. “It’s 
Miss Fannie! I’ve knocked and hollered till I’m hoarse, 
but there isn’t any answer and Mis’ Horton told me to 
—to fetch a policeman!” 


CHAPTER III 


BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR 

Ut 4 POLICEMAN !’ ” repeated Mrs. Moffat, 
aghast. “What in the world for? ,, 

A. A. —to break the door down!” Agnes 

whispered with a fearful glance over her shoulder up the 
well of the staircase. “It’s locked from the inside and the 
key’s still in the hole! Mis’ Horton says the police have 
got to be here in case anything terrible should’ve hap¬ 
pened. Deary me, in all the years-! Hear her now, 

ma’am! I thought maybe you’d go up to her before she 
gets a stroke or something!” 

“I will, at once, Agnes!” Mrs. Moffat had paused to 
listen to the subdued pounding and frightened entreaties 
in the landlady’s usually placid tones and now she started 
to close her door. “I’ll just get into a few things and 
you’d better call the officer without rousing the rest of 
the house.” 

“They’re all up, only Miss Myrtle’s in hysterics and 
the cook ain’t much better!” Agnes turned to descend 
the stairs. “You’ll hurry, ma’am?” 

Waiting only to pin up her heavy braid, thrust her 
feet into slippers, and put on a more substantial garment 
than the light bathrobe, Mrs. Moffat hurried up the stairs 
with her heart beating suffocatingly and a nameless fear 
clutching at her throat. 


27 



28 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


The girl must be there! She couldn’t have gone out 
again, and besides, there was the door locked from inside! 
Why didn’t she answer? 

From behind a closed door on the third floor there 
came the strangling sobs of Myrtle Harris’ noisy hys¬ 
teria, and a heavy tread and hoarse breathing in Simeon 
Darley’s room showed that the alarm had been conveyed 
to the middle-aged bookkeeper, but Mrs. Moffat was 
scarcely conscious of the sounds that reached her ears. 
She knew only that the thumping and calling from above 
had ceased and that her feet seemed weighed with lead 
so that she could hardly drag them along, yet in reality 
she was all but flying along the hall to the next flight 
of stairs. 

At their foot she drew back for an instant as the 
door of the front hall bedroom opened abruptly and 
the new boarder, Edgar North, confronted her, fully 
dressed. 

“I beg your pardon, but isn’t there some trouble?” he 
asked quietly, his dark eyes searching hers with evident 
concern. “I’ll be ve’y glad to be of any assistance-?” 

“I’m not sure,” Mrs. Moffat stammered, and then 
drew herself together. “Miss Gillespie can’t be waked 
and Mrs. Horton is afraid she is ill. I am going up to 
see.” 

She started up the last flight, discovering the landlady- 
sitting huddled on the topmost step and Henry Jordan, 
coatless and collarless, leaning against the balustrade on 
the landing just over her head, his face haggard and 
gray in the cold, searching light. 



BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR 


29 


“Oh, Mis’ Moffat!” Mrs. Horton moaned, holding out 
her fat, trembling hands. “I’ve called and called, but 
Fannie don’t seem to hear! Henry Jordan’s almost 
kicked the panels through and he wanted to break the 
door down for me, himself, only I wouldn’t let him! I 
know she come in all right, for I saw the light from under 
her door long after eleven, when I took a last look 
through the house before I went to bed, the same as I 
always do. She’d have come to me if she felt sick, or 
anything. You don’t think that she’s—she’s-!” 

“I don’t know what to think, Mrs. Horton, but you’ll 
just have to pull yourself together. We’ll know soon 
what has happened.” Mrs. Moffat held the cold, shak¬ 
ing hands in a firm grip and glanced up at the young 
man, surprised to find that her own voice was in such 
steady control once more. “You haven’t heard the 
slightest sound from Miss Gillespie?” 

He shook his head speechlessly and then another voice 
sounded from just behind and below her. 

“I don’t like to intrude, being such a stranger, but is 
there any way I could be of service, Mrs. Horton?” 

“Heavens, it’s Mr. North! I’d forgotten all about 
you!” the landlady exclaimed. “Maybe we’re only mak¬ 
ing a fuss over nothing, but Miss Gillespie-!” 

Words failed her but Edgar North nodded. 

“I know; Mrs. Moffat told me. You said something 
a minute ago about breaking the door down—perhaps 
Mr. Jordan and I could fo’ce it-?” 

“Thanks, North, but Mrs. Horton thinks we’d better 
wait for the police.” Henry Jordan found his voice, but 



30 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


it was strained and unnatural, and he spoke with what 
was evidently a tremendous effort. “They’d have to 
be notified anyway, if there’s anything desperately 
wrong!” 

“To be sure,” the young Southerner agreed in a low, 
shocked tone. “Is there a doctor on this street? If 
Miss Gillespie has met with some accident during the 
night-?” 

“Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” Mrs. 
Horton cried. “Doctor Vaughn lives just four doors 
away on the opposite side and I’ll be ever so much obliged 
if you’ll run over and bring him here. Do bang on the 
door again, Henry! Maybe she’s come to and can hear 
us now!” 

The other young man had turned and was running 
down the stairs as Henry moved obediently toward the 
door at the rear of the hall which faced them with a 
blankness that seemed portentous in its silent menace. 
Mrs. Moffat noted his reluctant hesitation before he 
lifted his hand to knock, but the gesture was never fin¬ 
ished, for at that moment a heavy door slammed far 
below and an elephantine tread resounded through the 
house as some one dashed up the stairs. 

Mrs. Horton rose and the two women instinctively 
drew together while Henry turned and took up his former 
position at the rail. Feet pounded along the hall just 
beneath, Myrtle Harris opened her door, screamed shrilly 
and closed it again, and the next instant a burly bluecoat 
appeared and ascended three steps at a time. 

“What’s wrong, Mrs. Horton?” he demanded. “Your 



BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR 


3i 

Agnes says there's a girl here, one of your boarders, that 
you can't get any answer from. Which door is it?” 

Silently Mrs. Horton pointed and the policeman ad¬ 
vanced. 

“Keep back, all of you! Not a single one crosses that 
sill till I say the word!—Now then!” 

There came a mighty thud and straining creak as his 
massive shoulder drove at the panel, but the stout lock 
held and it was only after a second and third onslaught 
that it gave way with a crash and the door burst inward, 
carrying him with it before he could brace himself. 

The shades had been pulled down and the darkness 
from within seemed to rush appallingly out upon them; 
and the jarring vibration echoed in the shuddering silence 
and died away while they waited, breathless and tense. 
Then, just when it seemed that the ultimate moment of 
endurance had come, a smothered exclamation reached 
their ears. 

“Holy Saints! She’s done the Dutch!” 

Everything whirled before Mrs. Moffat’s vision, yet 
through it she still seemed to see clearly the expression 
of hopeless horror upon Henry Jordan’s face; but Mrs. 
Horton uttered a choking cry and collapsed at her feet, a 
quivering mound of flesh, as though she had been stricken 
by a blow. 

The next few minutes passed in a kaleidoscopic jum¬ 
ble of hideous, confused impressions. She was aware 
that Simeon Darley passed her bellowing inarticulately, 
with the tail of his dressing-gown streaking out behind 
him; that the young man from New Orleans had reap- 


32 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


peared with a bearded stranger carrying a small black 
bag; and that somehow Agnes was beside her, bending 
over the unconscious figure of the landlady, wailing 
thinly and wringing her hands while the sound of femi¬ 
nine weeping from below seemed to have been augmented 
into a chorus. 

Then the stentorian voice of the bluecoat brought a 
semblance of order. 

“Now then, get back there! No one lay a finger on 

the body till the medical examiner-! Oh, ’tis you, 

Doctor! Come this way, please! The rest of you clear 
out; clear this hall and the stairs, but see that not a one 
of you leaves this house!” 

Mrs. Moffat rose, swaying, from where she had 
dropped to her knees beside the landlady, and in spite of 
herself her eyes turned with awful fascination to the 
broken door and the shadowy semi-darkness that lay 
beyond. The wooden furnishings showed merely in 
vague outline but the bed had evidently been relegated 
from one of the more elaborately appointed rooms down¬ 
stairs when its style went out of fashion, for it was of 
brass with square-cut posts reaching almost to the ceiling 
from its towering headboard. To Mrs. Moffat’s dazed, 
fearful vision it seemed that from one of these something 
swung in mid-air—something slim and white and un¬ 
naturally tall that loomed like a specter, and involuntarily 
she took a trembling step forward. 

The next moment a hand fell heavily on her shoulder 
and the same loud, authoritative tone admonished: 

“Keep back, lady! Get on downstairs and take Mrs. 



BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR 


33 

Horton with you.—Doctor, don’t let a one of them in 
there till I go telephone to the station.” 

Henry and the new young man between them were 
lifting the landlady’s flaccid bulk and Mrs. Moffat fol¬ 
lowed slowly with Agnes down the two flights of stairs 
to Mrs. Horton’s own rear hall bedroom on the second 
floor. Myrtle Harris’ hysteria had subsided to heaving 
sobs as they passed her door, but below they came upon 
Caroline, the cook, crouched at the foot of the stairs, 
rocking herself back and forth in a paroxysm of woe. 

“Whut was it, Mistuh Burke?” she had gathered her 
wits together to demand of the policeman as he descended 
in advance of the others. “Whut done got po’ Miss 
Fan? Lordy, lordy! Fust time you was evah in dis 
yere house ’ceptin’ fo’ a tas’e o’ mah cookin’-1” 

“Lemme get by, Caroline, and hush up that noise!” 
he responded gruffly. “You better ’tend to Mrs. 
Horton-.” 

The landlady opened her eyes as they laid her upon 
her bed and glanced shrinkingly about. Then her gaze 
fastened on Mrs. Moffat’s tense face. 

“Fannie! What—what happened to her!” she whis¬ 
pered. “She isn’t-? She can’t be-?” 

Mrs. Moffat shook her head. 

“I didn’t see, but the officer said she was dead. At 
least he gave orders that no one was to go near the body 
and he has notified some one over the telephone. That is 
all I know.” She turned as Simeon Darley appeared in 
the doorway. “Did you go into that room?” 

“Yes.—God, it’s frightful! Why did the poor child 






34 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


do it?” His voice was low and shaken and the flesh 
sagged in grayish folds from his jaw as though his round 
face had been suddenly deflated. “It’s—it’s like a night¬ 
mare! What could have driven her to-!” 

“To what!” Mrs. Horton sat bolt upright. “What are 
you trying to say, Mr. Darley? Fannie didn’t-!” 

“She’s hung herself!” He drew a handkerchief from 
the pocket of his dressing-gown and mopped his face. 
“You never saw anything so horrible! She’s hanging 
there to the bedpost with the chair kicked away from 
under her-!” 

Agnes screamed and covered her face with her hands 
and Mrs. Horton moaned, but Henry Jordan stood 
rigidly staring straight before him with unseeing eyes. 
Mrs. Moffat glanced at Edgar North and he nodded 
gravely. 

“Mr. Jordan and I saw her, too. It’s—a terrible 
thing! I don’t know about the fo’malities of the law 
up No’th, but if there is anything I can do for any of 

you ladies, for Mrs. Horton-?” He paused and 

although his face had paled his tones were steady. 

“I don’t think so, but you might ask the doctor to look 
in on Miss Harris on his way down,” Mrs. Moffat sug¬ 
gested mechanically. “Agnes, I’ll see to Mrs. Horton 
now. Get the cook quieted and back to her kitchen; 
everybody’s got to have some coffee, whether they want 
it or not, to brace up and go through with this dreadful 
business. I suppose a crowd will begin to collect pretty 
soon if the policeman was seen to come in here and then 
the doctor-.” 







BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR 


35 


“I’ll put on my collar and coat, and North and I can 
go down and keep them away from the vestibule/* offered 
Henry Jordan, passing his hand across his forehead. 
Mrs. Moffat saw that it came down glistening with 
moisture, and his voice sounded now like that of a man 
roused with difficulty from a dream. “I suppose they 
won’t let us do anything—upstairs.** 

He stumbled from the room in the wake of Edgar 
North, who had preceded him, and Simeon Darley asked 
helplessly: 

“What can I do after I phone to the office? God, I 
never had such a shock! To think how bright and happy 
she seemed at dinner last night and then to find her dead, 
hanging like that !’* 

“For heaven’s sake!’* Mrs. Horton moaned, covering 
both ears with her hands. “If you say anything more 
you’ll drive me crazy! Something musta happened when 
she went out last night, but why in the world didn’t she 
come to me and tell me? Fannie was a dear, good girl 
and she mighta known there was nothing she couldn’t 
talk to me about! It’s wonderful you can keep so ca’m, 
Mis’ Moffat! I’m thankful you’re here to help me, 
though it’s terr’ble for you to get mixed up in this! Poor 
girl! Poor girl!” 

The tears were coursing down her cheeks and she 
wiped them away with the end of the pillowcase as 
Officer Burke paused on the threshold. 

“Come on, Darley, I’ll need you till a couple of the 
boys get over here from the station-house. I don t want 
anybody let up that top flight of stairs.” 


36 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


The importance of his mission filling him with sudden 
composure, Darley gathered his robe about him and de¬ 
parted; and as Mrs. Horton rose and tottered to her 
dresser, still weeping, her companion proceeded to her 
own room. There, while she dressed hastily and re¬ 
arranged her hair, the hideous, unbelievable fact kept 
pounding into her brain; Fannie Gillespie had hanged 
herself! The slim, white, wraith-like thing which had 
appeared to float there in the semi-darkness of the room 
had been her body, dangling from the bedpost! The girl 
whose last words had voiced the wish that there wouldn’t 
be “anything but good times, ever!” was dead, thrust into 
the Unknown by the act of her own hand! 

It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be! Even as she forced the 
truth with monotonous reiteration upon her conscious¬ 
ness, Mrs. Moffat found herself rebelling, refusing to 
accept it. Fannie’s nervous, apprehensive manner, her 
evasion of the pointblank question as to whether or not 
the man she called “Frank” had threatened her, and the 
very words of her reply: “Fellows say crazy, silly things 
about what they’ll do when you won’t bother with them 
any more but they don’t do anything, really”—all these 
returned to Mrs. Moffat’s mind, but they offered no ade¬ 
quate explanation of the girl’s suicide. She had feared 
a quarrel, a distasteful scene such as had actually taken 
place on the previous evening, perhaps, but surely nothing 
more, surely nothing could have threatened her which 
left only the dread alternative of self-destruction! 

Yet she must have had some reason for that sudden, 
desperate impulse! Did Henry Jordan suspect what it 


BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR 


37 


could be? He had borne the shock of the discovery with 
remarkable composure, even for one of his quiet, self- 
contained temperament, considering the fact, that, up to 
a few short weeks before, he had appeared to be deeply 
attached to the girl. His face had expressed horror, pain, 
shrinking revulsion, but not an overwhelming surprise. 
Could he conceive some motive for Fannie’s mad act 
which had been hidden from her other associates, even 
from the motherly but not too discerning eyes of Mrs. 
Horton ? 

A car drove up to the curb and stopped, and heavy 
footsteps passed along the hall, accompanied by the low 
mutter of masculine voices, before she finished dressing, 
and when Agnes appeared at the door Mrs. Moffat was 
not unprepared for her announcement: 

“The police doctor’s come with another man, and 
there’s more policemen in the vestibule and on the side¬ 
walk keeping the crowd back. Do you hear them?” 

Mrs. Moffat had indeed been subconsciously aware of 
an increasing babel of sound from below and the shuffle 
and tramp of many feet on the pavement, but she had 
given it no heed in the turmoil of her thoughts. Now 
she stepped to the window and lifted the shade which 
flapped over the open lower sash. A small mob was 
eddying about the cleared semi-circle held by several blue- 
coats before the old-fashioned high stoop; delivery boys 
and children on their way to school formed the inner 
ring and the morbidly curious of the neighborhood were 
clustered in the background, while knots of people had 
filled the doorways and opened windows across the street. 


38 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


From either avenue were coming others in a continuous 
stream attracted by the crowd already gathered and the 
sight of the police car drawn up at the curb. Mrs. 
Moffat hastily dropped the shade and turned away from 
the window. 

“Mrs. Horton says will you please come down to the 
dining-room for your coffee ?” Agnes inquired. “Mr. 
Jordan’s took Mr. Darley’s place upstairs. Ain’t it ter¬ 
rible about poor Miss Fannie? I don’t know what 
they’re going to do with her, but I heard the police doctor 
say something about a autopsy 1” 

“I suppose that’s the usual thing.” Mrs. Moffat re¬ 
pressed a shudder. “Tell Mrs. Horton I’ll be right 
down.” 

In passing she glanced at the chair beside the table. 
There only a few short hours before Fannie Gillespie had 
been sitting, her soft blue cape like a cloud about her 
and the paste diamonds glistening bravely as they swayed 
pendant from her small ears. She had been looking for¬ 
ward to a “big party” to-night and earlier she had re¬ 
marked with the liveliest anticipation that the beaches 
“were going to be great this summer.” Was that the 
mental attitude of a girl who contemplated death, who 
secretly faced a problem to which she could find only the 
most tragic of solutions? 

In the meantime Mrs. Horton, having dressed and 
stemmed her tears, had summoned Henry Jordan from 
his self-imposed duty in the vestibule and coaxed him to 
swallow a cup of steaming coffee, after which Officer 
Burke had ordered him to stand sentry for Simeon 


BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR 


39 

Darley on the top floor and he passed the latter on the last 
flight of stairs. 

"It’s—it’s hell, Henry!” The rotund figure seemed to 
have shrunken beneath the dressing-gown and the stubby 
hands worked convulsively. “A shutter or something is 
banging in there as though her heels were drumming 
against the wall, and I could have sworn I heard some¬ 
thing like a groan. It’s a downright shame to leave her 
that way! Don’t go near the door again, my boy, it’ll 
break you all up!” 

But when his footsteps had died away in the echoing 
well of the staircase, Henry Jordan, after a swift glance 
about him, had gone straight to the yawning aperture at 
the end of the hall where the shattered door swung on its 
twisted hinges and, reaching in, drawn it toward him. 
The key was still in the burst lock, its bit protruding 
almost to the ward from the outer side of the keyhole. 
Henry bent and studied it, then with a second quick 
glance behind him he whipped out his handkerchief, 
wrapped it carefully around his hand, and reaching be¬ 
hind the edge of the door withdrew the key. 

Retreating to the center of the hall where the sunshine 
came down in a pallid streak through the skylight he held 
the key by the bow and examined the lock end with puz¬ 
zled attention while a slight frown gathered on his fore¬ 
head, but a sound from below roused him with a start 
and he hurried back to the door. When he had replaced 
the key he pushed the door so that it swayed back to its 
former position and then, as he turned, his gaze fell for 
the last time on the vague outline of the pathetically 


40 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


small, inert form suspended in the gloom within, and a 
groan forced its way between his set teeth. 

When Burke ascended the stairs a moment later with 
the assistant medical examiner and another behind him, 
he found his deputy standing motionless beneath the sky¬ 
light, his hands gripping the balustrade and his head 
bowed so that a deep, obliterating shadow fell across his 
face. 


CHAPTER IV 


STEVENSON FROM HEADQUARTERS 

/HO was Fannie Gillespie? Where did she 
come from? Do you know the names and 
addresses of any of her relatives?” The 
assistant medical examiner, a portentously grave young 
man with a high, bulging forehead and stiff, upstanding 
yellow hair like a brush above it, peered owlishly through 
his large-rimmed glasses as he sat beside the center table 
in the parlor and shot his questions at the still dazed 
landlady. 

“Her full name is Francis May Gillespie and she came 
from up-state; from Bison, New York,” Mrs. Horton 
replied in a tone that still trembled. “Her parents are 
dead, and I don’t know—seems to me I did hear her 
speak of a brother, but I can’t recall that she mentioned 
his name or where he lived.” 

“How long has she boarded here ?” 

“She come to me a year ago last March; that’ll be 
nearly fourteen months. Fannie hadn’t been away from 
home long then. She’d been boarding with the aunt of a 
girl who worked in the same place as her, Ruthven’s 
wholesale millinery, it was.” 

“She was employed there until the present time?” 

“No, she’s with Louisette now, I mean-” Mrs. 

4i 



42 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


Horton caught herself up with a shudder of remem¬ 
brance. “I mean she was there yesterday. ,, 

The doctor nodded unconcernedly. 

“How old was she?” 

“Just twenty-one. She had a birthday on the twen¬ 
tieth of last month and Caroline baked her a cake ...” 

“ ‘Just twenty-one.’ ” The doctor made a brief note. 
“Do you know if she was engaged to be married?” 

“Oh, no! Fannie’s a real popular girl—I mean, she 
was—and she had lots of gentlemen friends who took 
her out, but I never heard of her promising to marry any 
of ’em. She—she wasn’t thinking of settling down yet; 
all she cared about was just having a good time.” Mrs. 
Horton paused and then added hastily: “Don’t make any 
mistake, though! Fannie was a thoroughly good girl 
and brought up careful, as anybody that knew her could 
tell. It was natural for her to like finery and she copied 
the rich customers at the store as close as she could, but 
all her jewelry was only fake that she bought herself and 
she’d do without ’most anything for a pretty dress.” 

“Who were these gentlemen friends? What are their 
names and where did they work? Did you meet them?” 

Mrs. Horton shook her head at the broadside of 
queries. 

“I don’t know. Fannie talked about them, of course, 
but I don’t recall their names except three; I never met 
any of them when they called to take her out, for I don’t 
hang around and poke my nose in my boarders’ business. 
Let me see—she spoke of an auto racer named Frank 
Ward, and Mr. Jack Rogers, a motion picture actor, and 


STEVENSON FROM HEADQUARTERS 43' 

there was a Ben Newell, who was a new friend. He 
runs some kind of a scenic railway thing at one of the 
parks. Fannie knew the auto racer longer, I think.” 

“Who was her most intimate friend?” 

“A girl that works with her at Louisette’s, Eileen 
Gaffney. She's been here two—three times on Sundays, 
a real pretty, stylish, lively girl, and I know they went 
out together often. I wouldn't have called them specially 
intimate, though; Fannie’d tell you everything she knew 
straight off if she liked you. She was that kind.” 

Tears welled up once more in the kindly eyes and the 
doctor frowned, asking hastily: 

“Do you know of any reason for the girl's suicide? 
Has she appeared to be in any trouble or difficulty?— 
Low-spirited? Has she asked about any letters or tele¬ 
phone calls that didn’t come?” 

There was a third person present; the man who had 
arrived with the assistant medical examiner. Through¬ 
out the interview he had stood quietly by the window 
seemingly intent on surveying the crowd outside through 
the thick, coarse lace curtains, but now he turned sharply, 
a stocky, thick-set figure with sandy hair and a shrewd, 
genial twinkle in his brown eyes. 

“No, she was the happiest little thing alive!” Mrs. 
Horton asserted. “She always asked who'd called her 
up and what letters had come for her, but she didn’t seem 
anxious about any particular one, and she didn't know 
what low spirits was! Ever since Mr. Burke broke the 
door down for me and found what—what she’d done 
I’ve been asking myself why, why, till I'm 'most crazy! 


44 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


That's the only thing could have happened to her; that 
she went out of her mind, and yet there never was a 
saner, more clear-headed girl, for all her foolishness about 
clothes and fun. She got nice money at Louisette’s, 
didn’t go in any debt that I ever heard of, and hadn’t any 
serious love affair; there ain’t a reason in the world why 
she should think of dying, much less making away with 
herself!” 

The doctor glanced at his companion and rose. 

“Then you don’t know of anyone to notify about her 
death?” 

“Not unless you can locate some Gillespies in Bison. 
If you mean about the funeral expenses I guess I can 
take care of them; Fannie’s been most like one of my own 
family and I couldn’t think of her laying in any charity 
grave. I s’pose you’ll—you’ll have to take her away for 
an autopsy?” 

The doctor nodded. 

“We’ll let you know when an undertaker can send for 
the body if no one claims it. I’ll arrange to take it away 
at once.” 

He turned to the door and the other man joined him. 
Mrs. Horton rose, but they paid no attention to her, talk¬ 
ing together for a moment in a quick undertone. Then 
the assistant medical examiner departed and his com¬ 
panion closed the door and came briskly back to her. 

“Sit down again, please, Mrs. Horton. This is a 
pretty sad thing to have happen in your house and of 
course you are as anxious as we are to find out what 
motive the girl had for killing herself,” he began in a 


STEVENSON FROM HEADQUARTERS 45 


sympathetically confidential tone. “Let’s see if we can’t 
get at some reason you haven’t thought of yet. You say 
she was the kind of a girl to give her confidence to any¬ 
body if she liked them, but there might have been some¬ 
thing in her life that she didn’t talk about, something 
that happened before she ever came here. You remem¬ 
bered that she spoke of a brother even though you 
couldn’t recall his name; can you think what she said 
about him, how she happened to mention him at all?” 

“Mrs. Horton’s wet eyes clouded as she turned them 
upon him. 

“I don’t know as I ought to talk about her family, 
and there isn’t anything much that I could say. Of 
course you come with the police doctor, but-?” 

He smiled reassuringly. 

“That’s all right. I’m Stevenson, from Headquarters, 
and we’re only interested in family gossip in order to 
get a line on the girl herself. What did she tell you about 
this brother of hers?” 

“I couldn’t say in so many words, Mr. Stevenson, I 
can only give you the general idea I got, for she spoke 
of him in an off-hand kind of way. I gathered that he 
was quite a little older’n her and slow-going, and though 
she seemed fond of him, I guess they wasn’t much alike. 
I know he was married, for Fannie didn’t like his wife; 
she couldn’t get on with her and I always thought that 
was why she left home, though she was crazy about the 
city. I don’t believe anything happened before she came 
here that she brooded over, any love affair, I mean; she 
never spoke of the boys back home except to laugh at ’em 



46 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


for being satisfied to stick there. Oh, there just isn’t 
any reason for what she did!” 

“Who was the girl that worked in Ruthven’s, the one 
whose aunt she boarded with before she came to you?” 

“I can’t remember the name, but it was uptown some¬ 
where,” Mrs. Horton replied. When the detective men¬ 
tioned “headquarters” she had shrunk from him in hor¬ 
ror, but his manner was so full of consideration and evi¬ 
dent goodwill that in her bewilderment and deep trouble 
her unsuspicious mind opened to him. She reiterated: 
“Fannie hadn’t anything to worry about from the past.” 

“That was a big jump for a little country girl without 
any pull, to go right from a cheap wholesale house like 
Ruthven’s to such a swell shop as Louisette’s.” Steven¬ 
son seemed to be following a line of thought of his own. 
“How’d she make it?” 

“Oh, that was luck—and her own pretty, smart air. 
*5he posed for some pictures Ruthven was getting out, 
advertising their early spring line just before Christmas, 
and Louisette saw them and sent for her. Fannie wasn’t 
like a country girl, Mr. Stevenson; she had style and a 
proud little way of holding her head as if she belonged 
to society all her life! It wasn’t only her prettiness made 
folks turn and look at her even in the simplest things she 
wore, there was something about her I can’t explain and 
everybody admired her.” 

Mrs. Horton wiped her eyes on a damp rag of a hand¬ 
kerchief and the detective nodded. 

“I get her type. Clothes-mad and covered with fake 
jewelry—is this her stuff? All of it?” 


STEVENSON FROM HEADQUARTERS 47 

He suddenly emptied a glittering pile from his coat 
pocket upon the table and Mrs. Horton started, then 
leaned forward to examine it. Rings and earrings, 
brooches, necklaces, and pendants blurred before her eyes 
and their meretricious brilliance seemed to dull. 

“I guess so,” she responded uncertainly. “Fannie had 
an awful lot of it, but her liking for it was innocent 
enough, goodness knows! She'd have outgrown that 
foolishness later on, it was just because she’d wanted 
pretty things all her life, I guess.” 

“And sporty company? She didn’t go with the kind 
of men that are usually attracted to a working girl, Mrs. 
Horton?” 

“I know,” the landlady sighed. Then she added in 
quick defense: “They was all right or she wouldn’t have 
let them take her out; Fannie could take care of herself 
anywhere and she did! There isn’t a living soul can say 
a word against her or would, Mr. Stevenson! Men all 
liked her, young and old, but she didn’t give anyone a 
serious thought.” 

“There must have been some one.” The detective 
smiled again. “You can’t help seeing a lot when you 
run a boarding-house and you must have known who it 
was she liked best, or at least was kidding along. What’s 
the most serious case she had?” 

“None lately,” Mrs. Horton disclaimed hastily and then 
checked herself. “Just a theater with one fellow, and a 
dance or a motor ride or a trip to one of the beaches in 
summer with another—that’s the way Fannie’s been 
going.” 


48 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


* ‘Lately/ you say; I mean before that.” Stevenson’s 
eyes narrowed as he gathered up the imitation jewels and 
thrust them back in his pocket. “You needn’t be afraid 
to speak, this won’t go any further. Who was it had a 
crush on her? You’ve got several men boarding here; 
was it one of them?” 

Mrs. Horton’s honest face flushed and her hands tight¬ 
ened in her lap. 

“Mr. North don’t count, he’s just come, and as for 
Mr. Darley and Mr. Jordan, they both liked her, I guess. 
I never was one to gossip, and nothing ever come of it so 
there don’t seem any use in talking about it now! Poor 
Fannie’s dead-!” 

Her tone was filled with very real distress, but Steven¬ 
son pursued inexorably: 

“That’s precisely why, Mrs. Horton. Darley’s the 
older man gotten up like a sport, isn’t he? Was he in 
love with her?” 

“Mercy, no! He did start to take her out a great deal 
just a few weeks ago, but Fannie was young and she 
liked young company, and I shouldn’t wonder if he found 
it kind of hard to keep up with her; anyway, she began 
going around with her boy friends again and Mr. Darley 
stood aside, but they’ve stayed good friends.” 

“And the young fellow, Jordan? He showed her 
attention, too?” 

“Yes. He’s lived here near three years, as fine and 
steady a boy as you’ll find anywhere! He never seemed 
to have time to bother with girls before Fannie came, he 
was too taken up with making good in his business, but 



STEVENSON FROM HEADQUARTERS 49 

she just kind of took him off his feet, I expect.” Mrs. 
Horton caught herself once more. “Of course there 
wasn't any engagement or anything and maybe I only 
imagined it, but I thought he cared an awful lot for her. 
There wasn’t any quarrel that I knew of, but they cooled 
off all of a sudden; she began going out more than ever 
and he buried himself in his work.” 

“What does Jordan do?” 

“He sells steel office furnishings and he’s been busy 
inventing some kind of a patent lock for filing cases. I 
don’t know anything about it except that he gets his room 
in a clutter!” Mrs. Horton shrugged. “You see, Mr. 
Stevenson, I can’t tell you anything. If Fannie went 
around with one gentleman friend more than another I 
didn’t know it, and she was gay and light-hearted up to 
the very last minute. She’s been out every single night 
this week.” 

“Do you know where, and who, she went with?” Ste¬ 
venson had been thoughtfully pacing up and down with 
slow, swinging strides, but now he halted in front of the 
landlady. “What time did she get in each night? You’ve 
got a quiet house here, haven’t you; don’t you usually 
know what hours your guests keep?” 

“I should hope so!” Mrs. Horton straightened in her 
chair. “Not that I’m nosey, but I sort of keep an eye on 
my young folks and I’ve never had a minute’s trouble 
in all these years until this terrible thing came! I take 
a look ’round every night before I go to bed and I can 
generally tell who’s in and out. Fannie got in early 
Monday night, but Tuesday she went to a dance—I let 


50 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


her press a dress to wear; I remember because it was the 
day Mis’ Moffat come. At Brewster Hall, the dance was, 
and she went to it with Mr. Rogers, the motion picture 
fellow. I don’t know what time she came home then 
or the next night, for there wasn’t any light in her room 
when I looked the last thing, and when she was late she 
never made any noise.” 

‘‘You don’t think she’d come in earlier and gone to 
bed ?” the detective suggested. 

“No. When she was home there was always a bright 
light in her room.” 

“Why?” Stevenson asked quickly. “What did she do? 
Write letters? Read?” 

“I never thought about it,” replied Mrs. Horton, sur¬ 
prised. “Fannie wasn’t much of a letter writer unless 
she mailed them outside, and I never saw her with a book 
in her hand except a fashion magazine, maybe. She was 
always neat and dainty, though; I guess perhaps she was 
mending and fixing her clothes. Last night she musta 
got in early, for I saw a light in her room but everything 
was quiet. If she was in any trouble it musta come up 
while she was out and I just can’t understand it!” 

There was a little pause while she lifted her handker¬ 
chief to her eyes once more. Stevenson had turned as 
though about to pace back and forth again, but after a 
moment he wheeled to face her and she saw that he held 
in his hands a coil of slender but strong rope streaked 
with dust and soot. A slip noose had been made in it 
and the end which dangled was not frayed but had been 
cut clean. 


STEVENSON FROM HEADQUARTERS 51 


“Did you ever see any rope like this before?” he 
asked. 

Mrs. Horton’s brow knit. 

“It looks like a length of ordinary clothes-line to me,” 
she replied. “I’ve got some just like it strung up on the 
roof; there wasn’t room in the yard for all I needed.” 

“How do you get up there?” 

“To the roof?” Mrs. Horton glanced up at him. 
“Why, through the trapdoor in the hall closet on the top 
floor; there’s a ladder leading up to it. It’s right by 

Fannie’s door—oh, good Heavens! You don’t mean-! 

That—that isn’t the rope she—she-?” 

Horror choked the words back in her throat and Ste¬ 
venson nodded gravely. 

“The body was hanging from this, Mrs. Horton, when 
the assistant medical examiner and I took it down. It 
has only recently been cut from a longer piece, and with 
some very sharp instrument; you can see how fresh the 
end is and how it has been chopped short off, not sawed 
through by a dull blade-” 

“I don’t want to see!” Mrs. Horton covered her face 
with her hands and her fat body shook. “Take it away! 
I—I can’t look!” 

“Never mind!” he returned with comforting reassur¬ 
ance. “You needn’t look at it now, but I may ask you 
to later, to compare it with other pieces.—Now, you say 
the girl was always happy and light-hearted. Are you 
sure you didn’t see any change in her lately ? I want you 
to think carefully, please. Taking into consideration 
what has happened, can you recall a word, even a look, 





52 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


that would show something- was on her mind?—Some¬ 
thing that not only grieved her but frightened her?” 

“Why should she be frightened?” Mrs. Horton half 
rose from her chair. “Folks don’t kill themselves because 
they’re afraid, unless maybe they’ve done something ter¬ 
rible that’s against the law, and of course Fannie couldn’t 
have done that! What in the world would she be 
afraid of?” 

“You haven’t answered my question!” A note of 
stern authority had manifested itself in his tone. “I 
want to know if at any time lately the girl appeared to 
be in dread of anything! It doesn’t matter what, that’s 
our lookout.—Haven’t you noticed the least change in 
her?” 

“Why, no!” There was a shade less certainty in Mrs. 
Horton’s voice. “She’s been real nervous lately, but I 
thought that was because she’d been on the go so much 
and maybe tired out with the spring rush of trade. It 
did seem as if she was just living on excitement and 
keeping herself going, and more than once I had half a 
mind to tell her she ought to rest, but she seemed to be 
having such a good time-” 

“How did she show this nervousness?” the detective 
interrupted. 

“Well, she jumped if anybody spoke to her sudden, 
and she kept looking around over her shoulder if she 
happened to sit with her back to a door or window— 
not that she was still a minute if she could help it! I 
never saw anybody so restless as she’s been lately. I 
said ‘good-bye’ to her at the door out there, two—three 



STEVENSON FROM HEADQUARTERS 53 


mornings when she was starting for work and she’d peek 
out of the vestibule as if to see if somebody was there 
and then scoot for the cars, and when she come home 
she’d hurry, no matter how tired she was. One night last 
week at dinner the fuse blew out and I thought she’d 
have hysterics before Agnes brought lamps—goodness! 
It never come to me until just now, but it does sound as 
if Fannie had been actually afraid, doesn’t it?” 

Stevenson did not reply directly but he nodded as 
though what she had told him was in accord with some 
idea of his own. 

“How long ago did you notice the first indications of 
this in the girl?” 

“Let me see!” Mrs. Horton passed her hand over her 
forehead. “Two—three weeks, anyway; maybe a month. 
It’s been getting worse, now that I think of it.—Mr. Ste¬ 
venson, what does it mean? You as much as told me to 
mind my own business a minute ago, but it is my busi¬ 
ness ! I must know what come to Fannie Gillespie right 
here under my own roof, and what she was so afraid of 
that she killed herself!” 

“Perhaps she was afraid of the very thing that did 
come to her here under this roof, Mrs. Horton,” Steven¬ 
son remarked quietly. “Her door was locked from the 
inside, it is true, and there isn’t any fire escape nor ladder 
nor even vine outside her window, but for all that we 
have no proof that the hand which slipped that noose 
over her head was her own!” 


CHAPTER V 


“ 'why some men kill* ” 

M ID-MORNING brought comparative quietude 
to the shocked household, for with the removal 
of Fannie Gillespie's body the crowd outside 
had gradually disintegrated and only a few loiterers re¬ 
mained to hover at a respectful distance from the two 
officers who still guarded the door. 

Within, the lower floor was for the time being de¬ 
serted, although the echo of a futile debate between Agnes 
and Caroline came up from the kitchen. There had been 
no need for the detective to enjoin silence upon the land¬ 
lady; after their interview she had gone directly to her 
room utterly overwhelmed by the added horror of his im¬ 
plied suggestion, and in Henry Jordan’s large, pleasant 
bedchamber beside hers the young man himself, Simeon 
Darley, and the new boarder, Edgar North, talked to¬ 
gether in low, subdued tones. Mrs, Moffat was pacing 
the floor of her own room at the front and above Myrtle 
Harris tossed in the troubled sleep superinduced by Doc¬ 
tor Vaughn’s opiate. 

The door of the hall closet on the top floor stood wide, 
a pale square of light streaming down into it from the 
opened trapdoor, and on the roof the detective Stevenson 
was down upon hands and knees in the soot and grime, 
54 


“ ‘WHY SOME MEN KILL’ ” 55 

minutely studying the blurred outline which showed here 
and there in the thick covering of dust and cinders. 
Parallel lines of slender, none-too-clean rope stretched 
from pole to pole across the roof-top except in one space 
where newly-cut ends hung in loops from opposite up¬ 
rights and clothes-pins were scattered here and there. 

A package hastily wrapped in a newspaper lay beside 
Stevenson, and he sat back on his heels, taking from it a 
large and exceedingly battered shoe with frayed, dangling 
strings. This he proceeded to fit over the prints he had 
been examining in the dust and then, shaking his head, 
he rewrapped the dilapidated footgear and, rising, ap¬ 
proached one of the posts from which depended a length 
of the severed clothesline. Detaching it, he coiled it 
tightly and placed it in the package with the shoe, then 
crossed to the trapdoor and descended, closing it care¬ 
fully after him. 

In the big back bedroom on the second floor, Simeon 
Darley, fully clothed now even to the tie of gorgeous 
hue which flowed beneath the lowest fold of his chin, sat 
dejectedly on the side of the bed, his hands nervously 
twisting the coverlet and his dull eyes staring at the floor 
as though to fix forever in his mind the faded, common¬ 
place pattern of the rug. Henry Jordan moved restlessly 
about, rumpling his curly, reddish-brown hair now and 
then with an impatient gesture, his haggard face boyish 
no longer but stamped with lines of maturity and suffer¬ 
ing, while from his position by the window, Edgar North 
glanced in a sympathetic but diffident manner from one 
to the other of them. 


56 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


A little silence had fallen, but as he halted, Henry 
Jordan broke it. 

“I’m going to find out I” He struck one hand into the 
cupped palm of the other. “I’m going to find out what 
made her do 1 it and who it was that brought upon her 
whatever trouble she was in! It wasn’t any fault of hers 
—you didn’t know her, North, but Simmy can tell you 
that it would be as far from her to do anything dishonest 
she’d be afraid to have found out as it would be to lose 
her head over some hopeless, romantic affair. She just 
lived for excitement and the bright lights fascinated her, 
blinded her to everything else. She’s got a brother some¬ 
where, but nobody else, and as a friend I mean to get at 
the truth. If any one is responsible I’m going to make 
him pay!” 

“I was a friend of hers, too,” Simeon reminded him, 
shaking his head dolefully. “I was willing to be more 
than that when I saw that you—well, that you and she 
weren’t going to hit it off, after all, but she would never 
have married an old fellow like me and I stopped making 
more of a fool of myself than I was born to be. There’s 
nothing I wouldn’t have done for her, though, and noth¬ 
ing I won’t do now, but I can’t see what could have 
driven her to take such a step! Of course she didn’t do 

anything dishonest, Henry, and as for being in love-! 

I don’t believe it could ever hit her hard enough to make 
her feel that life wasn’t worth, living! As you say, the 
bright lights were all that counted. You met her at din¬ 
ner last night, Mr. North—God, it don’t seem possible 
what’s happened since!—and you saw how gay and high- 



“ ‘WHY SOME MEN KILL’ ” 


57 

spirited she was; would you have thought she had it in 
her mind to kill herself before morning?” 

North shook his head gravely. 

“No, suh, assuredly not. As Mr. Jordan says, I didn’t 
know her, but the young lady appeared to be most happy 
and full of life. She must, of co’se, have been in some 
sorrow or misery, but she certainly kept it to herself 
right bravely.” 

“Well, it isn’t any good for us to keep milling it over 
and over.” Simeon rose wearily, the jauntiness of yes¬ 
terday lost in a profound depression that made his dash¬ 
ing attire seem all the more incongruous, although his 
figure now appeared pathetic rather than droll. “I just 
want you to know, Henry, that I’m with you in whatever 
you’re going to do to find out if any one drove that poor 
child to her death! We owe it to her, and as you say, 
she has nobody else. I’ll go crazy if I don’t stop think¬ 
ing about it and I’ve got to get down to the office some¬ 
how later. I’m going to see if that detective fellow has 
gone.” 

When the door had closed behind him, Edgar North 
stepped forward. 

“I’m a stranger to you-all, but I would like to help, 
too, if there is anything that I can do,” he offered. “The 
young lady was your friend and I only met her once, but 
down where I come from a woman, especially alone and 
making her own way, is a kind of charge for every man 
to be of service to. There is nothing anybody can do 
for Miss Gillespie now, except to reckon with whoever 
caused her to suffer, just as men-folks kin to her would 





58 BRIGHT LIGHTS 

do and I hope you-all will count me in, like any neighbor.” 

“That’s good of you, North!” Henry exclaimed as he 
met the other’s resolute glance. “Of course if her 
brother comes forward to look after the situation it 
won’t be up to any of us and I have an idea he’s the sort 
of fellow who would rather let the whole thing drop and 
be forgotten than lift a finger to stir up gossip in his 
home town. Still, I’ll never rest till I know just what 
happened last night!” 

Stevenson had not descended from the top floor, but 
leaving his package beside the closet door he pushed open 
the one which swung on yawning hinges. The little 
room was flooded with light now, for the shade had been 
pulled up at the single window and a veering streak of 
sunshine played over the clean, neatly mended rug to the 
foot of the narrow, tumbled bed. 

Its two snowy pillows were piled one on top of the 
other and still hollowed in the center where a restless 
head had lain upon them, and the coverlet and bedding 
were flung back, trailing over the square, shining brass 
footboard. A faded pink cotton kimono lay over a chair 
beneath which was a pair of rose-colored boudoir slip¬ 
pers with one rosette gone. A box of chocolates was up¬ 
set on the floor, and a small, crumpled handkerchief had 
been dropped nearby, but there was no other sign of dis¬ 
order in the room, save the second chair, overturned. 

A white celluloid toilet set, flanked by bottles of per¬ 
fume and jars and boxes of cosmetics, was spread on the 
bureau top and a row of high-heeled shoes and slippers, 
for the most part gay hued and paper soled, were ranged 


“ ‘WHY SOME MEN KILL’ ” 


59 


along a low shelf. From the bracket of the single gas 
burner, above it, lengths of ribbon dangled. The room 
contained in addition only a washstand and a small trunk 
placed just under the window, but the half-open door of 
the closet revealed close-packed gowns of butterfly color¬ 
ing varied by sober black. 

The detective’s keen, darting glance took in every de¬ 
tail, although he had already given the room a cursory 
examination, and now he stepped once more to the win¬ 
dow and drew aside the curtain of dotted swiss. 

The fire-escape reached up to the floor below and four 
stories down the cleanly-swept square of the cement yard 
showed like a white patch crossed with the straight, 
thread-like shadows of the clotheslines stretching from 
fence to fence. The yards on either side were littered 
and unkempt, but that directly in the rear sported a grass 
plot with a few struggling bushes putting forth bedrag¬ 
gled buds, and from each window-sill with its box of 
sturdy geraniums, trailing vines descended. 

That must be a private residence, Stevenson concluded, 
one of the few remaining in that section, but a stone’s 
throw from Broadway, which had formerly housed some 
of the city’s most conservative families. Could any one 
within it have looked from their rear windows on the 
previous night and seen something which might give him 
a clue to this problem, which to his vision seemed to be 
growing more and more complex? 

He turned away at last and approached the bureau, 
opening one drawer after another to discover in the top¬ 
most a confusion of gloves, handkerchiefs, more ribbons, 


6o 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


and a dozen dainty accessories to feminine attire, while 
below cheap, lacy underwear and sleazy silk stockings 
were all that met his gaze. Nowhere did there appear 
to be a scrap of paper bearing even an address, much less 
the picture postcards and notes which girls of Fannie 
Gillespie’s type usually treasured. 

Their absence was in itself significant, and he tried the 
hatboxes on the shelf in the closet. One contained scraps 
of lace and ribbon and another unmended stockings and 
lingerie, but the rest held only the collection of millinery 
for which they had been originally intended. The drawer 
of the washstand yielded a bottle of ink, pens, and a box 
of lavender-tinted note-paper, but not a line had been 
written upon it and he turned his attention to the trunk. 

It was locked, but in a leather vanity case which hung 
beside the mirror the detective found the key and hastily 
flung back the lid. The top tray was evidently a re¬ 
pository for still more finery but past its usefulness and 
Stevenson lifted it out, placing it across the bed. The 
bottom of the trunk was littered with the very souvenirs 
which he had been seeking; snapshots and group photo¬ 
graphs of the sort procurable at the various resorts and 
amusement parks, ribbons from candy boxes and bunches 
of violets, menus and paper favors from many res¬ 
taurants along the Rialto, and a collection of horns, 
rattlers and other noise-producing toys, which attested 
to the girl’s presence at frequent carnivals and holiday 
festivities. 

In all of the photographs, Fannie Gillespie herself was 
prominently featured, sometimes with a taller, dark, 


“ 'WHY SOME MEN KILL’” 


61 


laughing girl in company with several youths, but more 
frequently alone with just one young man and not the 
same young man except in three instances. The detec¬ 
tive rapidly sorted them out; in three of the pictures her 
fellow-boarder, Henry Jordan, was posed with her, in half 
a dozen her companion was a man slightly older, loose- 
limbed and yet with the unconscious poise of an athlete. 
His nose was aquiline, his lips firm, and jaw prominent, 
and a long lock of dark hair strayed carelessly down over 
his forehead. 

The person who appeared more frequently than 
either of the other two with Fannie Gillespie in her gal¬ 
lery was in striking contrast to them. Slender, blond, 
and almost effeminately dapper, his clothes were obvi¬ 
ously custom-made and he wore them with the studied 
effect of one habituated to self-exploitation. The smug 
countenance with its small, close-clipped mustache and 
cleft chin was familiar to Stevenson and he placed him at 
once as Jack Rogers, a motion picture actor whom he 
had seen more than once on the screen. 

To the various young men in the other photographs he 
gave but a passing glance, yet tied them all up together 
with a bit of violet ribbon and, laying them at one side, 
continued his search. 

He had not so far found a scrap of writing, but in a 
corner of the trunk he came at last upon a five-pound 
candy box filled to the brim with letters. Taking it out 
he dropped the trunk-lid and seated himself upon it. The 
letters were for the most part mere scraps of notes mak¬ 
ing or breaking engagements and signed only with first 


62 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


names. They were undated, but the postmarks supplied 
that deficiency and showed that they were the collection 
of nearly a year back. Several in purple ink on violet 
note-paper bore the name “Eileen,” a dozen or more in a 
large masculine hand with underlines and broad flour¬ 
ishes were signed “Jack,” and condescendingly affec¬ 
tionate in tone, addressing the recipient as “Girly-kins” 
or “Little-girl,” but they were nearly all half jocular 
excuses for forgotten or ignored engagements. Eight 
or ten notes, however, in a plain, heavy writing with deep 
down-strokes were in quite a different tenor; beginning 
invariably “Dear Fan,” they reproached her for missed 
appointments, coldness and unkindness, hinting at flirta¬ 
tions and fickleness on her part, and pleading humbly for 
her favor. Later ones, as indicated by the postmarks, 
were more hurt and resentful in tone as though the 
writer’s patient devotion were tried beyond endurance 
and the final one mailed some six months before was an 
impassioned if ungrammatical farewell. They were 
signed “Frank.” 

There were “Joes” and “Dicks,” a “Bert,” a “Fred,” 
and numerous other masculine names attached to various 
epistles, but they appeared to be from mere admiring 
acquaintances and of little moment, and the box was 
almost empty. None of them had been postmarked 
“Bison” nor could they by any stretch of the imagination 
have been written by a brother, and none contained the 
least reference which would give a clue to the previous 
night’s tragedy. 

At the very bottom of the box, however, were several 


“ ‘WHY SOME MEN KILL* ” 


63 


notes of a few lines each, without envelopes and folded 
into small triangles. They were written in pencil and 
half of them were unsigned, but at sight of the name 
attached to the rest the detective frowned thoughtfully 
and gave himself with complete absorption to their 
perusal. 

The noon whistles blew and a renewed stir and bustle 
throughout the house indicated that the normal routine 
was being resumed in spite of the tragedy. Mrs. Horton, 
her eyes still red and a look of shrinking terror stamped 
upon her face, ordered the day’s supplies over the 
telephone instead of venturing to market, Agnes was 
straightening such of the rooms as she could gain admit¬ 
tance to, and Mrs. Moffat was assisting Myrtle Harris to 
dress in the event that the detective would release her to 
go to her work at the motion picture house. 

In the drawing room, with the embargo on tobacco 
lifted for once, Simeon Darley and the young Southerner 
had foregathered again, but Henry Jordan still kept to 
his room, pacing back and forth as though inaction were 
a torture. The presence of his two fellow boarders had 
been a trial, but he found their absence insupportable 
and .turned with relief when a knock sounded upon his 
door. It was the detective, Stevenson. 

“You wanted to see me?” There was a note of sur¬ 
prise in his voice but he added quickly: “Oh, yes! I 
was the first to enter the room behind the policeman 
after he broke down the door. We didn’t touch the— 
the body! It wasn’t necessary, anybody could have seen 
that it was too late! Come in, won’t you?” 


64 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


Stevenson entered, closing the door, but he did not 
seem to see the chair which the young man in¬ 
dicated. Instead, he advanced to the center table, stand¬ 
ing with his back to the light so that his face was in 
shadow. 

‘‘You knew Fannie Gillespie pretty well, didn't you?” 
There was in his manner now none of the confidential, 
sympathetic note he had used in his interview with the 
landlady. “Ever meet her before she came here to 
board?” 

Henry shook his head. 

“No.” 

“How long was it after you first met her that you and 
she became engaged?” 

“We never were.” Henry started slightly and his face 
flushed. “I admired Miss Gillespie a lot-” 

“It won’t do!” the detective interrupted shortly. “You 
were in love with the girl!” 

“Yes, I was, or at least I thought so; it amounts to the 
same thing, I suppose.” Henry straightened, throwing 
back his shoulders, and eyed the other steadily. “Miss 
Gillespie didn’t care for me, however, and there was an 
end to it. I don’t see how that matters now, or what it’s 
got to do with your investigation.” 

“Don’t you?” Stevenson came a step forward and 
rested his knuckles on the table. “There was an under¬ 
standing between you two, wasn’t there?” 

“Not a definite one.” 

“Definite enough for you to take it pretty hard when 
she threw you over!” A slow smile grew on the detec- 



“ ‘WHY SOME MEN KILL* ” 65 

tive’s face. “Why did she, Jordan? What was the row 
about ?” 

“Miss Gillespie did not ‘throw me over/ as you call it!” 
Henry retorted hotly. “I’ve told you that I admired her 
and thought for a time that I was in love with her; per¬ 
haps I was, but I don’t see what business it is of the 
authorities! Miss Gillespie did not care enough about 
me to marry me and told me so, but there wasn’t any 
‘row’!” 

“How long was it after she came here that you began 
going around with her?” 

“Oh, several months. She was so popular and had so 
many friends that I never thought there would be a 
chance for me and I was taken up with my work. It was 
late in the summer after she came back from her vaca¬ 
tion that I asked her to go to a band concert with me 
in the Park and from then on- ...” 

He paused and Stevenson finished for him. 

“From then on you were sweethearts. Even if she 
didn’t care enough about you to marry you, she let you 
think she did, it was all fixed in your mind at least, 
wasn’t it?” 

“I had misunderstood Miss Gillespie’s attitude toward 
me,” responded Henry stiffly. “It was not her fault 
and the matter was ended some time ago. I don’t wish 
to discuss it.” 

“ ’Fraid you’ll have to, young man!” There was a 
sterner note in the detective’s tone. “You and the girl 
exchanged notes that didn’t go through the mail. What 
did you do—slip them under her door?” 



66 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“No.” Henry was plainly taken aback. “We put 
them in the big vase that stands in the wall niche at the 
turn of the stairs just outside here, on this floor. It all 
began only in fun and we didn't do it regularly-” 

He stopped, for Stevenson had taken a handful of the 
little triangular folded notes from his pocket and was 
slowly opening them. He showed one of the unsigned 
ones. 

“Is this your writing?” 

Henry nodded. 

“Yes. You’ll find my name on some of them, if t Miss 
Gillespie kept them all. What of it? Surely you don’t 
imagine that what was to her merely a—a flirtation has 
anything to do with what happened last night!” 

“Do you recall the occasion when you wrote this?” 
Stevenson had been rapidly running through the notes 
ignoring his protest, and now he read aloud: “ ‘Dear 

Fannie. I’ve been thinking over what you said and I 
don’t see my way clear to taking you to that masquerade. 
Dear, I’m sorry, but )^ou know my circumstances and 
what I’m working for. Since Christmas we’ve spent all 
that I saved in the six months before and I must call a 
halt some time. Be my own girl and Come with me to 
the skating rink instead; we’ll drop in afterwards for a 
dance and some ice cream anywhere you say. Don’t be 
angry, sweetheart, we can’t go on this way. Henry.’ ” 

“I remember that, all right. It was just before St. 
Valentine’s Day and Miss Gillespie wanted to go to a 
masquerade where the tickets alone would have been more 
than I could afford,” Henry responded a trifle grimly. 



“ ‘WHY SOME MEN KILL* ” 


67 


“She went, though ?” the detective suggested. 

“With some one else. That was the beginning of the 
break between us, but we stayed good friends. I couldn’t 
give her what she had to have and we both realized it.” 

“Good friends, eh?—How about this? ‘You can’t 
mean it! I won’t give you up! I had rather see you 
dead before me than belonging to somebody else, and 
you can’t play with me as you have with the others! You 
have driven me half crazy, Fannie, I love you so!’ ” 

“For God’s sake, what’s the good of going over all 
that!” Henry groaned. “Haven’t I told you that I was 
wild about her and I made a fool of myself? Don’t 
you think it’s bad enough for me to remember now with¬ 
out hearing my own words! I’m not the only fellow 
that’s been hard hit in his life, but it’s all over and done 
with now!” 

“All over, last night!” Stevenson assented coolly. 
“You’d rather have seen her dead and you’ve had your 
wish!” 

“What do you mean?” Henry demanded hoarsely. 

“What did you mean when you wrote this?” the de¬ 
tective countered. “ ‘I understand you at last! I 
wouldn’t let myself believe it before. I can see now why 
some men kill and think the price well paid to rid the 
world of some one better out of it! You never cared, 
you don’t know what it is, and when I look back and 
think what a fool I was and all that I hoped and planned 
with you just laughing at me I feel like killing somebody 
myself! I warn you, you have driven me mad!’—That’s 
pretty plain, Jordan, but I guess we’d like to know about 


68 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


it a little more definitely. You admit you wrote this, 
the handwriting is yours, you were in love with the girl 
and she turned you down. You threatened her-!” 

“Stop right there!” Henry exclaimed in a low voice. 
“Are you accusing me of—murder? Her—her body 
was found with the door locked on the inside! I was 
wild with jealousy and disappointment when I wrote that, 
but it meant nothing! You don’t think that I could have 
had anything to do with her death? It’s monstrous!” 

“The door was locked from inside, but the window 
was open and there are marks on the sill,” Stevenson re¬ 
turned significantly. “The rope that hung her was strong 
enough to bear the weight of a man also if it was let 
down from the roof where it was cut from a clothes¬ 
line. I guess you’d better come downtown with me, 
Jordan, and explain about those letters to the Chief!” 



CHAPTER VI 


LOCKWOOD STERETT’S OPINION 

* i TT ’LL never believe it, never!” Mrs. Horton plumped 
down in the rocker in Mrs. Moffat’s room, her lips 
compressed in a straight line and her mild eyes 
blazing. “When that smart Aleck of a detective first 
talked to me yesterday he hinted that—that it wasn’t poor 
Fannie’s own hands fastened that rope around her neck, 
but I was so overcome I didn’t guess what he was getting 
at! I’d like to’ve died when he took Henry away, and 
why that boy won’t clear himself-!” 

“What did he say to you this morning when you went 
down to see him?” Mrs. Moffat asked. 

“He wouldn’t even see me.” The landlady shook her 
head mournfully. “I gave a piece of my mind to that 
detective, though, when he came again! It’s terrible 
enough to have that poor, dear child dead, to say nothing 
of her killing herself, without Henry being accused of 
murdering her! I don’t wonder he’s so broke up he don’t 
know what to do, seeing as he used to be crazy about 
her! I declare I think the police must be downright 
fools, holding him like this when they know they’ll only 
have to let him go!” 

Mrs. Moffat pursed her lips reflectively. 

“Has he a lawyer?” 


69 




70 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Yes. The firm he works for sent him a big one; 
Lockwood Sterett, of Sterett, Hecksher & Mullanafey. 
They defended that girl last year who was accused of 
shooting her brother-in-law right in the lobby of the 
Odeon Theatre and the jury acquitted her without leav¬ 
ing their seats. I understand Henry wasn’t hardly will¬ 
ing to see him.—I can’t make out what’s got into that 
boy!” 

“I remember reading about that case. It looks pretty 
serious, doesn’t it, if it’s going to take a lawyer as cele¬ 
brated as that to get young Mr. Jordan out of this 
trouble?” Mrs. Moffat observed. “The police may be 
making out a stronger case against him than we have 
any idea of.” 

“Oh, it’s only that the firm want him to have the best,” 
Mrs. Horton replied easily. “They think a lot of Henry, 
you know. He went right into the factory and learned 
all about the steel construction of that furniture from the 
ground up; that’s why he can sell it so well, and I 
shouldn’t wonder if he made his everlasting fortune with 
that lock he’s inventing! I must say it’s a dreadful thing 
to bring such a charge as this against a fine young man 
like Henry, but he ain’t the weak kind to let it hurt his 
whole future and he’ll never in the world be held for trial. 
They couldn’t!” 

“He must have been in his room all night before last,” 
Mrs. Moffat spoke as though to herself. “Did he go out 
earlier in the evening? It’s funny I didn’t hear him 
come in, when his room is just back of this and I’m a 
light sleeper.” 


LOCKWOOD STERETTS OPINION 


7i 


“I heard him,” the landlady affirmed. “I wouldn’t 
give that Stevenson the satisfaction of telling him, but 
it was nearly midnight and he walked the floor for the 
longest time afterward; I had half a mind to get up and 
ask him if he was sick or anything, for he ain’t usually 
restless like that.—There’s the bell. Do you suppose it’s 
that dratted detective again?” 

She rose, patting her gray hair nervously and smooth¬ 
ing her voluminous black skirt, and after a brief interval 
Agnes’ slip-shod feet could be heard scuttling up the 
stairs. 

“Mis’ Horton!” Her watery eyes were staring and 
her breath caught in her throat. “Who d’you think’s 
down in the parlor? A man who calls himself 'Gillespie’! 
Mr. William Gillespie!” 

“Lord A’mighty!” Mrs. Horton gasped. “Poor Fan¬ 
nie’s brother! What in the world am I to say to him?” 

She bustled out and down the stairs to find a young 
man standing by the window in the parlor. He turned 
as she entered and came slowly forward, a tall, awkward 
young man in an ill-fitting suit of gray with a wide new 
mourning band sewed crookedly on one sleeve, and a 
made-up black tie about a collar a size too big, through 
the wings of which his Adam’s apple moved up and down 
convulsively. His prominent eyes were a paler blue 
than Fannie’s, his features sharper, and the hair slicked 
down flatly over his low forehead was a dull mouse-color, 
nevertheless there was a slight, indefinable resemblance 
which made the landlady’s eyes blur and she impulsively 
held out both hands. 


0 


72 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Mr. Gillespie, I was just saying that I don’t know 
what I’m going to say to you nor how I can let you know 
what I feel! You’re a relation of Fannie?” 

“I’m her brother.” His nasal voice was flat and un¬ 
emotional and he shook one of her hands listlessly. 
“Feller from the New York police came up to Bison last 
night and told me what had happened to her and my wife 
thought I’d better get down here myself and see what 
was to be done. I ain’t heard from Fannie in a long 
time. She didn’t leave any word for me, did she ?” 

Mrs. Horton shook her head. 

“No, but she—she often talked about you to me, Mr. 
Gillespie.” In her desire to comfort him she good- 
heartedly stretched a point, yet she felt vaguely with a 
repelled sense of frustration that this long-faced, solemn 
young man was not in any pressing need of it. “You’re 
the only relation she had in the world, ain’t you?” 

“Yes, but we weren’t much alike. I’m steady-going, 
but she was all for gay doings. I don’t know’s I ever 
expected to hear from her again and this—this is an 
awful shock! My wife’s on the School Board and quite 
a worker in our church and it’s going to make it pretty 
hard for her if there’s a lot of scandal. We were set 
against Fannie coming to the city from the first and did 
everything we could to stop her, but she was possessed 
to get here ever since she was a little thing, and this is 
what’s come of it! I’ve got a first-class shoe store and 
she could have clerked it for me or kept the books, but it 
didn’t satisfy her, she had to have New York life. Well, 
she got it! I shouldn’t wonder if I had to shut up store 


LOCKWOOD STERETT’S OPINION 73 


for a while and take my wife away, and it’s right in my 
busy season!” 

Mrs. Horton’s face flushed and her eyes snapped. 

“I guess poor Fannie’s suffered more’n anybody else 
will!” she remarked. “What did the man that went up 
to find you tell you about her?” 

“That she’d hung herself!” A dull flush had mounted, 
too, in his sharp face and his jaw set. “I don’t know 
any more and I don’t want to! She had a good home to 
come back to if she was minded and we’d always have 
looked out for her no matter what kind of a muss she got 
herself into. There wasn’t any call for her to do what 
she did, though my wife always said nothing but harm 
would come of her leaving us like that.” 

“Fannie was as good and sweet a girl as ever I had in 
my house!” Mrs. Horton declared indignantly. “There 
wasn’t any harm come to her till—till the night before 
last and heaven only knows what that was! They told 
you she—she’d killed herself, but they ain’t so sure. 
They didn’t tell you that they’ve arrested one of my 
boarders on suspicion of knowing something about her 
death?” 

William Gillespie shook his head, his slow mind evi¬ 
dently taking in with difficulty the portent of her words. 
Then his flush receded and his jaw sagged. 

“Murder!” he mumbled thickly. “You mean they 
think somebody murdered her ? This boarder of yours— 
what makes them-?” 

“Because he wanted to marry her, but I guess she must 
have thrown him over. Not that there’s a single thing 



74 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


against him; the police are only trying to make it out 
worse than it is, though goodness knows it's terrible 
enough, Mr. Gillespie! Henry Jordan is a splendid 
young man, and he’d never have harmed a hair of your 
sister’s head, no matter what they say!” 

Gillespie seemed scarcely to have heard. His bony, 
large-knuckled hands were opening and closing with a 
tenseness which made them tremble and a cold, glittering 
light had dawned in his pale eyes. 

“If it was that!” Cords stood out in his throat and 
his Adam’s apple bobbed more convulsively than ever. 
“If Fan didn’t do it after all—-if somebody killed her— 
I’m glad I come!” 

“Nobody knows whether they did or not, but it wasn’t 
Henry Jordan!” Mrs. Horton reiterated hastily. “Don’t 
you believe that for a minute, Mr. Gillespie! Fannie 
hadn’t any reason in the world that any of us can think 
of to kill herself, but it seems more impossible still that 
anybody else could have done it, even if they had cause, 
which they hadn’t! Folks can’t be got up out of their 
beds, with the gas on bright, and—and hung, without 
struggling or making some kind of an outcry that would 
have been heard, for though Fannie was the only one 
sleeping on that floor, the rooms just below was all occu¬ 
pied, and she’d locked her door from the inside.” 

“The police ought to know what they’re doing.” Gil¬ 
lespie’s thin lips tightened. “I guess I’ll get on down to 
their headquarters and see what they can tell me. I sup¬ 
pose it’ll cost a sight of money to prove anything, but the 
State’ll likely pay it and as long as there’s bound to be 


LOCKWOOD STERETT’S OPINION 


75 


scandal it might as well be proved that Fan didn't fly in 
the face of Providence and kill herself. We'll be able 
to hold up our heads, anyway!” 

“I s'pose,” Mrs. Horton’s own lips curled. “I s'pose 
if somebody—not Henry—did murder Fannie you’d just 
as lief see ’em punished for it even if it did make a little 
more talk?” 

“I calculate the law’ll take its course, ma’am.” He 
turned toward the door, but paused on the threshold. 
“We’re peace’ble, law-abiding folks up my way and I 
don’t aim to go against the police; if they say it was 
murder they’ll take care of who did it, and if it turns out 
that Fannie killed herself we’ll just bury her right and try 
to live it down. It won’t bring Fan back to get in more 
scandal than we be in a’ready. I’m stopping at the 
Widow Hotel if you should want to reach me, but I’ll 
be much obliged if you won’t let on to any of the fellers 
that write pieces for the papers; my wife wouldn’t want 
me to say anything. I’ll make all the arrangements for 
the funeral as soon as the police’ll give me leave.” 

“And your sister’s things?” Mrs. Horton asked in a 
repressed tone. “The police are holding ’em now, but 
do you want I should send ’em to you ?” 

“Yes. 'Maple Street, Bison,’ is the address; I guess 
likely my wife can find some use for them,” he returned 
promptly, then hesitated. “You don’t know if there 
was any wages coming to her where she worked, do 
you ?” 

“No, I don’t!” the disgusted landlady snapped. “I 
guess maybe you can find out if you try, though!” 


;6 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“I calculate I can/’ Gillespie nodded, unmoved. “Did 
she owe for board or anything else that you know of, 
Mrs. Horton? I don’t aim for her to have any debts 
left behind her, though she was always awful extrava¬ 
gant.” 

“Fannie didn’t owe me anything and I ain’t heard of 
her getting in debt,” she replied with a final effort at self- 
restraint. “I guess the funeral will be about the only 
expense you’ll be put to, Mr. Gillespie, and if you feel 
that it’s too much for you, I’ll be glad to pay it myself, 
as I told the police. Seems to me it’s little enough to do 
for her!” 

“I’m obliged to you, ma’am, but it won’t cost much.” 
He was impervious to the shaft. “Good-day to you.” 

Mrs. Horton did not trust herself to reply to the salu¬ 
tation except by the merest of nods and when the front 
door had closed behind him she started for the stairs, 
but encountered Simeon Darley in the hall. 

“Did you hear him?” she demanded. “That was 
Fannie’s own brother and all he cared about was to know 
if there was any money due her at the store! Do you 
wonder she got away from home quick’s ever she saved 
up carfare?” 

Simeon nodded gravely. 

“I thought he’d be like that if he showed up at all. 
Little Fannie wouldn’t have dropped her relations if they 
hadn’t been pretty mean to her. I can’t get over the 
shock about Henry, though! Why, just a little before they 
took him away he told me and that new young fellow, 
North, that he wouldn’t rest till he found out why she’d 


LOCKWOOD STERETT’S OPINION 77 


killed herself! That don’t look as if he could have 
had a suspicion it wasn’t suicide, let alone that he— 
he knew anything, unless he’s a lot deeper than we ever 
thought.” 

“Why, how you talk, Mr. Darley!” Mrs. Horton 
exclaimed in amazed reproach. “Surely you don’t 
believe-?” 

“I don’t know what to think!” He shook his head. 
“I’d never have believed it of Henry, myself, but the 
police don’t usually risk making mistakes and there’s no 
telling what they know. He’s the quiet kind you can’t 
always make out and he did seem to take Fannie’s turn¬ 
down mighty cool, considering how crazy he was about 
her; it seemed kind of funny to me, now that I remember. 
It don’t seem possible, knowing the boy as we do, that 
he could have been planning such a fearful thing, but 
how are we to judge what was going on in his 
mind?” 

“Well, I can, still having what gumption I was born 
with!” Mrs. Horton declared loyally. “As to the police 

not making mistakes-! There goes the door-bell 

again! If it’s that Gillespie man back I don’t know’s 
I’ll be responsible for what I may say to him!” 

But it was not William Gillespie. The gentleman who 
entered when Agnes opened the door was middle-aged 
and urbane, with large-lensed glasses astride his aristo¬ 
cratic nose, straight, smooth-shaven lips, and a clean-cut 
fighting jaw. The tones in which he announced his 
name and errand were low, but they carried to the ears 
of Mrs. Horton and her boarder, who had discreetly 




78 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


retreated under the slope of the stairs, and the landlady 
waddled quickly forward. 

“Mr. Sterett? I’m Mis’ Horton and I must say I’m 
glad to see you! Come right in the parlor; I heard 
Henry Jordan’s firm had got you to look out for him 
in this trouble, and if there’s anything I can tell you I’ll be 
very pleased.” 

“Thank you.” The attorney bowed and placing his 
hat on the table took the seat to which she motioned after 
closing the door and dropping into her own chair. “I 
find that my client is too disturbed in mind at present 
to confer with me at any length and there are some 
details you can readily give me.” 

“Go right ahead and ask me what you like!” Mrs. 
Horton folded her hands. “I want to say first off, 
though, that I know Henry didn’t have a thing in the 
world to do with poor Fannie Gillespie’s death. I haven’t 
had a minute’s doubt of him and I ain’t going to, no 
matter what the police try to saddle him with!” 

“That is gratifying to hear, Mrs. Horton, but I may 
say I had no misgivings as to your attitude.” Lockwood 
Sterett smiled genially. “We understand each other per¬ 
fectly, I think, and you realize you will only be helping 
Mr. Jordan by giving me your confidence. You have 
had a great deal of experience with young people?” 

“If twenty years’ boarding them and kind of watching 
over them means anything, I should say I had!” Mrs. 
Horton responded with emphasis. “I like to have ’em 
’round me and they know it, and usually they get to run¬ 
ning to me with their troubles. No harm ever come to 


LOCKWOOD STERETTS OPINION 79 


a single one of ’em under my roof until the other night!” 

“I’m sure of that. My client tells me that at one time 
he was strongly attached to the unfortunate young girl 
who is dead; can you tell me how serious, in your esti¬ 
mation, that attachment was?” 

He eyed her inquiringly and Mrs. Horton’s glance fell. 

“ ’Bout as serious as it could be, I guess, for Henry’s 
real serious in everything and I never knew him to bother 
with any other girl. It come on him slow, for Fannie’d 
been here several months before he began to pay her 
attention, but though he got it real bad, as everybody 
could see, he didn’t lose his head. It’s my opinion he 
realized she wasn’t the girl for him, at the same time she 
made up her mind he couldn’t give her the kind of good 
times and expensive parties she wanted, and he was sen¬ 
sible and strong enough not to let it get the best of him. 
There’s no denying he cared, though.” 

“I see,” the attorney said slowly. “There were others, 
no doubt, who were waiting to give Fannie Gillespie these 
good times?” 

“Plenty. She was pretty as a picture and full of life 
and innocent fun; she had a lot of gentlemen friends who 
could spend more’n Henry.—Not that Fannie was what 
they call a gold-digger, but she was crazy about the bright 
lights and she just never thought what things cost, and 
with auto racers and motion picture fellows it seems to 
be easy come and easy go-” 

“Actors, do you mean,—and race drivers?” Sterett 
interrupted. “Who were they? Did you know them?” 

Mrs. Horton gave their names and added: 



8 o 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“I don’t think Fannie cared for anybody; at least, she 
never would have killed herself over any man living! 
That’s what makes it all the more mysterious, for she 
must have done it herself!” 

“Then there was undoubtedly some reason for it and 
we’ll have to find that reason,” the attorney remarked 
quickly. “That will be the first step in refuting the cir¬ 
cumstantial evidence brought against my client, for we 
cannot establish a corroborated alibi for that night. Mr. 
Jordan has already informed the authorities that after 
dining he went out alone and walked for several hours, 
encountering no one he knew, and that on his return he 
let himself in with his key and went directly to his room 
without seeing any other member of the household.” 

“His room’s right next mine, and I heard him come 
in, if that’ll help any!” Mrs. Horton declared eagerly. 
“He didn’t leave it again, either, at least not till I fell 
asleep and that must have been a good hour. It was 
twelve or a little before when he got home.” 

“I’m afraid that will have little value.” Sterett shook 
his head. “The autopsy has shown that the young 
woman came to her death some six or seven hours before 
the body was found, presumably between one and three 
in the morning. You say that in your opinion she would 
never have killed herself because of a love affair; can you 
suggest any possible motive for her suicide?” 

“No, I can’t, and the whole thing’s just about driving 
me crazy!” Mrs. Horton avowed. “There wasn’t any 
reason, but neither was there for anybody to murder her! 
They can’t ever fasten it on Henry, though, that’s one 


LOCKWOOD STERETT’S OPINION 81 


comfort! How soon do you suppose they’ll let him go, 
Mr. Sterett?” 

“When thirty men on the grand jury decide there is 
not sufficient evidence to hold him, Mrs. Horton,” re¬ 
plied Sterett very gravely. “That they must so decide is 
not at all certain, and we must not underestimate the 
strength of the case against him. Henry Jordan, unless 
further and contradictory evidence comes to light, stands 
a grave chance of being indicted and brought to trial.” 


CHAPTER VII 


NEW LIGHT 

F ANNIE GILLESPIE’S body had been taken to 
her former home and her brother came no more 
to the boarding-house after her pitiful finery and 
trinkets were packed and shipped. Mrs. Moffat com¬ 
pleted her buying and returned to Ohio, Simeon Darley 
with a wondrous array of sport clothes departed upon his 
vacation, and the long, early summer days passed in a 
brooding suspense. 

Edgar North, the bond salesman from New Orleans, 
had slipped quietly into the life of the household and 
proved to be a young man of regular if somewhat solitary 
habits and unfailing courtesy, but he maintained a reserve 
which Myrtle Harris’ broadest hints for entertainment 
failed to penetrate and she gave him up in disgust. 

Early in June a new boarder made her appearance, a 
tall, slim, quiet-voiced girl with smooth, nut-brown hair, 
delicate features and deep, serious violet-blue eyes. She 
was one of several under-secretaries to a prominent 
banker and Mrs. Horton was elated at her advent, but 
installed her with secret misgivings in the large front 
room on the top floor. No one had climbed that last 
flight of stairs since the tragedy except Agnes, on dreaded 
cleaning days, and she never passed that closed door at 
82 


NEW LIGHT 


83 

the rear without feeling the scant hair rise on her head 
and goose flesh stand out upon her lean, wiry arms. 
Caroline, the cook, had flatly refused to avail herself fur¬ 
ther of the roof for clothes-drying purposes, vouchsafing 
an occult reason in addition to its grim memories. 

“Debils or ghose’s, ’twam’t nothin’ human done put 
dat rope ’roun’ po’ Miss Fan’s neck dat night, ca’se huc- 
come dey steal mah shoe outen de back yard?” she de¬ 
manded. “Sot ’em out dere evenin’ befo’, I did, an’ w’en 
I done look fo’ em atter de tribulation o’ de murder one 
o’ ’em was gone! Dey done dat to wuk some spell on 
me, and I ain’t gwine nowheres near dat air roof, not 
ag’in!” 

Mrs. Horton felt constrained to warn Myrtle Harris 
not to reveal to the newcomer the details of Fannie 
Gillespie’s death if she had not read them in the papers, 
but the precaution was needless, for Marian Gray her¬ 
self broached the subject when they were sitting on the 
steps of the high stoop one warm evening after dinner. 

“It was very sad about the poor girl who died here a 
week or two ago, Mrs. Horton.” Her tone was filled 
with a hesitating sympathy. “It must have been a ter¬ 
rible shock to you all.” 

“Shock is no name for it!” Mrs. Horton responded, 
feeling a sense of relief that this latest boarder knew, 
after all. Simmy Darley would be home soon from his 
early vacation and no amount of warning could stop his 
garrulous tongue. “I thought I should never get over it, 
Miss Gray, especially with what’s before us when poor 
Henry Jordan is arraigned, but I guess you can stand 


84 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


most things if you gotta. I never had a nicer girl in my 
house than poor Fannie, and the whole dreadful thing is 
a mystery to me! Mr. North met her—he come just the 
night before it happened—and he can tell you she didn’t 
act like the thought of death had ever entered her mind.” 

“No. Miss Gillespie seemed ve’y happy and light¬ 
hearted.” Thus appealed to, Edgar North replied in his 
slow, musical drawl. “She impressed me as being a most 
charming young lady, but of co’se I was in no position 
to judge her feelings. I am not familiar with the ways 
of No’thern co’te procedure but I cannot help thinking 
there may be room fo’ doubt of the wisdom shown in the 
co’se taken.” 

“You mean about arresting Henry?” Mrs. Horton 
came to the point bluntly. “There wasn’t any wisdom 
about it; it was the most awful piece of-!” 

She paused, for Edgar North had risen and stepped 
aside as a dark, pretty girl hesitated for a moment and 
then came up the steps in a little rush, with a soft swish 
of her silk skirt. 

“Why, Miss Gaffney-!” 

“Mrs. Horton, can I see you for a few minutes? I 
thought perhaps you might not remember me, but-” 

“Of course I do! You were poor Fannie’s friend, 
that worked with her at Louisette’s!” Mrs. Horton ex¬ 
claimed as the girl halted. “You used to come here to 
see her, and I looked for you at the funeral in the under¬ 
taking parlors.” 

“I couldn’t go!” Miss Gaffney responded in a low, 
shuddering tone, darting an uneasy, confused glance at 





NEW LIGHT 


85 


the other two from her bold, heavy-lashed eyes. “I’ve 
been wanting to talk to you, though, for ever so long, 
but I couldn’t make up my mind.” 

“Come right in the parlor!” Mrs. Horton rose and 
led the way. “I’m awful glad you come! Did that 
brother of Fannie’s show up at the store?” 

“Yes. Wasn’t he awful? You’d never think he and 

Fannie-! But that isn’t what I came to see you 

about.” The girl eyed the open window cautiously as 
she seated herself on the edge of a chair. “Mrs. Horton, 
will you promise never to say a word if I tell you some¬ 
thing? The police detectives have been coming to the 
store and then the lawyer for that fellow who’s been 
accused, and Louisette is wild! She needn’t be, for the 
publicity didn’t hurt her with the trade that buys the 
most, only the old, conservative crowd who fuss about a 
forty-dollar uncurled ostrich as if it was a hundred-and- 
fifty bird of paradise, but she likes their cars in the line 
in front of the door, and if anybody else comes asking 
for me on account of me being such friends with Fannie 
I’m afraid I’ll lose my position. All the same, there’s 
something on my mind that I’ve got to tell, and I don’t 
know who else to go to! You’ll keep it to yourself?” 

“Something you know that nobody else does?” Mrs. 
Horton asked eagerly. “It can’t help Fannie now, nor 
hurt her either, to have anything known, but if it’s about 
Henry Jordan, if it’ll make a difference in his being held 
for trial, what’s the good of telling me, when it isn’t to 
go any further ?” 

“Oh, I don’t know what to do!” Miss Gaffney twisted 



86 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


the wrist cords of her vanity case with nervous fingers. 
“It isn’t about Mr. Jordan, though it might make a—-a 
big difference. I met him when Fannie was going 
around with him and I thought she was silly to waste her 
time with a tight-wad like that who wasn’t any fun, when 
there were heaps of just dandy boys waiting to show us 
wonderful times and take us out right. She did have 
sense enough after a while to break with him, but even 
though he did take it awful bad and act as if she’d done 
something terrible, I can’t bring myself to think it was 
him killed her, if anybody did; not after the things she 
told me! You don’t believe there’s a—a possible chance 
that they’ll hold him just because of those letters, do 
you, Mrs. Horton?” 

“I didn’t believe they could hold him even over night, 
but they did!” the landlady replied grimly. “If men 
whose business it is to judge murderers could take such a 
stand there’s no telling what a fool grand jury will do! 
If you know anything that’ll help him, even though he 
wasn’t the kind to throw his money away on good times 
that didn’t mean anything to a regular man, and you don’t 
come forward and tell it, it’ll be on your conscience the 
rest of your life, providing you’ve got one!” 

“You needn’t be mean to me!” the girl sniffed. “I’ve 
got to think of myself, too, haven’t I? I’d never get 
taken on in a swell place like Louisette’s again with more 
notoriety, and it isn’t as if I really knew anything, only 
what Fannie was afraid of. I’m afraid, too! If Frank 
Ward knew I’d talked about him-!” 

“That auto-racing feller?” Mrs. Horton interrupted. 



NEW LIGHT 


87 


“So Fannie was scared, after all, and it wasn’t of what 
Henry might do! I s’pose you know you’ll likely be 
called before the grand jury, anyway? Louisette can’t 
blame you for that!” 

“Not if I—I just don’t know anything!” Miss Gaffney 
faltered. 

“But you’ll be under oath and you’ve got to tell the 
truth!” The older woman laid a plump hand on the 
girl’s knee. “Mr. Sterett’s been after you already, you 
say? Now, s’pose you was to go to him with me and 
tell him everything, leaving him to find out the truth 
without ever letting on the tip come from you? If you 
ain’t thinking about doing right by Henry, don’t you 
feel you kind of owe it to Fannie? Mr. Sterett won’t 
let this Ward feller or anybody else make trouble for 
you, and it’ll save you, maybe, from telling lies in court 
that you could go to jail for yourself if it was proved 
on you!” 

Miss Gaffney cowered in her chair. 

“Oh, it’s terrible!” she moaned. “If you think Mr. 
Sterett wouldn’t ever give me away . . . ?” 

Twenty minutes later Mrs. Horton, in her best black 
beaded dress and a top-heavy bonnet, towed the reluctant 
witness determinedly into the attorney’s luxurious library 
and explained the situation. Lockwood Sterett had been 
covertly amused at her somewhat incoherent telephone 
message, but he grew quickly serious when its purport 
was revealed. 

Motioning suavely to chairs, he addressed himself 
with convincing reassurance to Eileen Gaffney. 


88 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“My dear young lady, no one shall ever know we have 
had this little conference! You were wise in coming to 
me, for I shall be prepared to shield you from awkward 
questioning at the forthcoming proceedings. You were 
Fannie Gillespie’s closest friend and she naturally con¬ 
fided in you. Am I to understand that she was in fear 
of her life, and from some one other than my client?” 

Eileen Gaffney nodded. 

“I don’t know that she thought Frank Ward would 
actually kill her, but she was afraid of him. She’d 
treated him the same way she did Mr. Jordan and other 
fellows besides, only he wasn’t the kind to—to take a 
throw without coming back. He had an awful temper; 
Fannie told me once that he’d half killed another driver, 
because he thought he’d done something crooked to him 
in a road race, and he didn’t do it openly, either! He 
waited for another race and then purposely ran him off 
a bridge!—I don’t know, of course, only what Fannie 
told me-!” 

“I understand,” Sterett interposed with a nod. “Go 
on. When did Fannie Gillespie—er, throw him?” 

“Last summer. She knew him a long time, before 
ever she came to Louisette’s, where her and me got to 
be friends, and he was just crazy about her, more than 
Mr. Jordan, I guess. Anyway, he showed it more. He 
was a grand spender and he used to get a friend for me 
and take us out for elegant parties, with a car of his own 
and everything!” Eileen waxed enthusiastic, then her 
pretty face clouded and she shrugged. “He got going 
too strong, though, and wanted Fannie to marry him, 



NEW LIGHT 


89 


and right then he was cold with her. She canned him 
and took up with Mr. Jordan, and Frank just faded. I 
warned her he wouldn’t take it like that and I was right, 
for he was only waiting; he’d sized up Mr. Jordan and 
knew just about how long Fannie would stand for free 
lectures and cheap movies when she’d been used to swell 
times! Sure enough, she turned Mr. Jordan down in 
February or March and, as soon as he saw her around 
in the big places again with Jack Rogers and Ben Newell 
and the crowd, Frank came back.” 

“You mean that Fannie Gillespie accepted his atten¬ 
tions again?” the attorney asked. 

“She did that, all right!” Eileen giggled. Then her 
face grew very sober. “Fannie was willing for all the 
good times he’d give her, but she told him flat she wasn’t 
going to have any more love nonsense; she was off that! 
It’s funny that a fellow’ll never get that through his head 
if he don’t want to believe it; Frank didn’t. He was 
more determined to marry her this time than before and 
at last Fannie got to be a little afraid of him.” 

“She told you so?” Sterett’s eyes narrowed behind 
their wide-rimmed glasses. “When did this happen? 
What did she say?” 

“It was about a month before—before she died.” 
Eileen’s rather shrill tones had lowered. “She’d been 
going out with a lot of fellows and Frank was getting 
sore about it. One morning at the store she told me she 
had had an awful fight with him the night before and he 
said he’d fix her so nobody else would want to go out 
with her. I asked her what he meant and she kind of 


go 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


shivered and said maybe he’d throw vitriol at her or 
smash her up in his car or something; that he’d looked 
like murder! It was then she told me about the other 
driver he’d crippled, but the next minute she was laugh¬ 
ing and said he wouldn’t ever dare do anything to her, 
but I watched and from then on she was different; she 
wouldn’t talk about it, but she was nervous and unhappy 
when she was going out with him. I asked her why she 
went and she said she had to kid him along till he left for 
Detroit and then she wouldn’t bother with him any 
more.” 

“When did Frank Ward go to Detroit? It was the 
night before her body was discovered, wasn’t it?” 

“No. He was supposed to go then, but he didn’t!” 
Her voice was a mere whisper now. “Fannie didn’t tell 
me. She didn’t know, and besides I didn’t see her again 
after she went home from the store that afternoon. 
She’d been acting more and more nervous and a few days 
before she admitted to me at last that she was afraid of 
him; it was the first time any fellow had ever made her 
feel that way, but she knew something dreadful would 
happen before she got rid of him, and she wished she’d 
never laid eyes on him.” 

“You are sure of that?” Mr. Sterett tapped his desk 
thoughtfully. “You are positive those were her 
words ?” 

“Every one!” Eileen declared. “There’d been another 
quarrel, for she was getting so scared of him she had 
told him a story about some date or other, just as if he 
had a right to know where she was going, or who with, 


NEW LIGHT 


9 i 


and he caught her. He said she ought to have that lie 
choked back down her throat and if she didn’t promise 
to lay off of everybody while he was away she’d never 
go out with anybody again! I was afraid for her, be¬ 
cause none of my gentlemen friends would go that far, 
and I begged her not to see him any more, but she said 
she had to, for the last time. That last time was the 
night before she died, and it was somebody else told me 
what happened—I’d rather not say who-” 

“Never mind that now. What was it?” Sterett 
leaned forward. “Do you mean about the scene in the 
Jazz-way restaurant when Rogers came to the table?” 

Eileen flushed and hesitated. 

“That wasn’t all,” she said at last. “Maybe you 
heard Jack was working in a new picture? Well, they 
laid him off and put someone else in his part; he don’t 
get very big ones yet, so it was easy, but I guess maybe 
if you found out why he didn’t go on with it—I couldn’t 
tell you, only somebody said he’d met with a kind of an 
accident-.” 

“I see,” Sterett nodded. “He went away from the 
restaurant after the scene, leaving Fannie Gillespie and 
Ward together there, didn’t he?” 

“I don’t know where he went!” Eileen disclaimed has¬ 
tily. “I heard Fannie ran off herself and left Frank sit¬ 
ting there alone and he seemed to be in a terrible rage! 
Real late, when he was supposed to be on the train going 
to Detroit, somebody I know saw him in Gilfay’s, that 
place where all the sporting men go, and when they asked 
him why he was still in town he said he’d waited over 




9 2 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


because there was something he had to ’tend to, and he 
said it in a nasty kind of way. I—I was told he did 
take an early train next morning, but you could find that 
out, Mr. Sterett; maybe you could find out, too, where he 
was during the time between.—I don’t mean that any of 
my friends know, or told me, but it seemed to me some¬ 
body ought to just make sure. It was him Fannie was 
afraid of, not Mr. Jordan!” 

“She told you all about her affair with Henry Jordan?” 
Sterett changed his line of inquiry abruptly. 

“Oh, yes! Fannie told me everything, I guess.” 
Eileen’s tone was buoyant with relief and she chattered 
on: “I never could understand what she saw in him, but 
perhaps it was just because he was new, and then he’d 
passed her up for months there at Mrs. Horton’s as if 
he didn’t know she was alive and Fannie wasn’t used to 
that; I shouldn’t wonder if she made up her mind for 
fun to get him going and then fell for him herself for 
awhile.” 

“You knew what they eventually quarrelled over?” 
the attorney pursued. 

“Because he-” Eileen glanced at Mrs. Horton 

and quickly amended her reply. “Because she was 
lively and liked parties and he didn’t. She was crazy 
about dancing, not just sitting around holding hands, and 
she got tired, I guess. I knew about those notes he 
wrote her; she used to show them to me and we’d laugh 
over them—I mean, he was so preachy and fault-finding, 
as if she was married to him already, when that was the 
last thing she was thinking of! Still, I couldn’t keep 



NEW LIGHT 


93 


quiet and let him face this when I knew about Frank 
Ward. Fd be scared something terrible to have him 
know I said it, but if any one broke in her room that 
night and killed Fannie, it was him!” 


CHAPTER VIII 


ARRAIGNED 

M RS. HORTON settled herself firmly in her chair 
and gazed about the crowded courtroom with a 
grimly critical eye. Mrs. Moffat, who had re¬ 
turned for the early autumn stock of ladies’ and misses’ 
attire for Feingold’s emporium, was seated beside her 
and a few rows behind Simeon Darley folded his new 
fawn-colored topcoat carefully over his plump knees and 
solemnly regarded the scene. 

The district attorney had risen to address the grand 
jury and at his first crisply enunciated words Mrs. 
Moffat glanced at the prisoner. Henry Jordan was thin¬ 
ner and pallid, but it was not that which had drawn her 
attention repeatedly since his entrance; it was the look 
of stern maturity which this fortnight of suspense had 
graven on his features, robbing them of their last attribute 
of youth. She could scarcely believe that the man be¬ 
fore her, embittered by this ordeal and worn with suf¬ 
fering, was the ambitious, buoyant lad of a few short 
weeks before, whom disappointment and the shattering 
of his fondest illusion had failed utterly to cast down. 
He seemed weary, with a curious air of detachment, as 
though he were merely a bored spectator instead of the 
94 


ARRAIGNED 


95 


central figure in this portentous scene, whose freedom, 
perhaps ultimately life itself, depended on the decision 
of the thirty individuals before him, cast in such vastly 
dissimilar molds. 

But District Attorney Harker’s trenchant voice claimed 
Mrs. Moffat’s ear at length. With a due regard for the 
dramatic he was extolling the beauty and virtues of the 
dead girl, picturing her as a simple little country maid, 
working industriously to earn her living and unmindful 
of her charm. Pursued by the attentions of her fellow 
boarder who had conceived a blind infatuation for her, 
she had at first consented to give him her companionship 
out of pity for the affection which she could not return, 
but when he demanded too much, when he insisted, 
accompanying his unwarranted claim by threats—as 
should be proven in good time to the gentlemen of the 
grand jury—when he attempted to coerce her into be¬ 
coming his wife, linking her whole future with that of 
a man she did not love, then Frances Gillespie gently, 
compassionately, but firmly refused to make this stupen¬ 
dous, absurd sacrifice. With her refusal revenge entered 
the heart of the man seated before them and he resolved 
to .take her life, that no other might ever find happiness 
with her. He described the supposititious murder with a 
wealth of graphic detail and wound up with a peroration 
painting Henry Jordan in the most lurid colors and 
likening him to the monsters of history. 

When he had taken his seat once more Mrs. Moffat 
felt her eyes drawn yet again to the prisoner. He 
seemed scarcely to have heard the denunciation as he sat 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


96 

staring straight before him with an odd tightening of 
the lines about his set mouth that might almost have been 
a shadow of a smile. 

All at once memory carried her back to the night 
of her arrival in the previous month when he had 
taken her to that sensational screen drama of faithless 
love and murder, and afterward defended, or at least 
excused, the slayer. With startling distinctness his 
very words came again to her mind: “Maybe he 
thought he had a right to kill her, same as he’d throt¬ 
tle a wild beast if he had nothing else to kill it with but 
his bare hands, to keep it from harming other people as 
it had him. ... I believe there’s apt to come a time in 
any man’s life when he’d like to kill . . . !” 

Had he been perhaps unconsciously voicing his own 
sentiments? Was the thought already in his mind to 
take Fannie’s life, not as the prosecutor declared, to 
prevent another from enjoying happiness with her, but 
as he himself had said of the pictured character : “Not 
for his own satisfaction but because he had a right, it 
would be better if she were dead!” 

But even as his words had returned to cast a first, 
faint shadow of doubt upon him in her thoughts, so the 
look in his eyes, as for a moment he turned his head 
toward her, dispelled it. Deeply encircled and drawn 
with mental anguish, they were yet clear and steady, with 
no hint of fear or guilt in their calm, courageous glance. 
This boy could never, even in thought, have committed 
the hideous crime with which he was charged! 

Officer Burke was the first witness to be examined, 


ARRAIGNED 


97 


and after the usual preliminaries the district attorney 
asked: 

“Where were you at seven-thirty-five on the morning 
of May twentieth last?” 

“Near the corner of Nint’ Avenoo and Forty-eight’ 
Street, patrolling my beat,” the policeman answered 
promptly, in the sing-song accents of an oft-told story. 

“Describe what occurred then.” 

“A woman came running up behind and grabbed me 
by the arm. ’Twas Agnes, that’s been chambermaid and 
waitress for Mrs. Horton at Number Three-twenty-six 
A. since before ever I was detailed to that precinct. She 
was white as a sheet with a wild look in her eyes and 
says she: 'Come quick, Mr. Burke! There’s something 
wrong!’ 'And what is it?’ says I, coming along just 
the same. 'I don’t know, but Miss Gillespie’s door has 
got to be broke down! ’Tis locked from the inside and 
she don’t answer!’ You hear the like of that from 
rooming houses more times than a few and I took it on 
the double-quick, her trailing after. When we got to 
Three-twenty-six A. the door was open and a young man 
I’d not seen before dashing down the steps. He yelled 
something about ‘Doctor Vaughn’ and I let him go, slam¬ 
ming the door and hurrying on up the stairs to the top 
floor, meeting no one on the way but Caroline, the cook, 
hollering in the hall. Mrs. Horton and another woman 
was holding on to each other on the top step of the last 
flight and Henry Jordan, with no coat nor collar on him, 
was leaning over the rail in the upper hall.” 

He paused, for a little stir had run around the court- 


9 8 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


room at his mention of the prisoner’s name, but the 
prosecutor carried him on. 

“You know these people?” 

“Yes, sir, all but the lady with Mrs. Horton, and her 
I’d seen there off and on for years back. I asked Mrs. 
Horton what was wrong and she said nothing, just 
pointed to the door of the little hall room at the rear. It 
was locked, all right, with the key turned in it from the 
other side so I broke it down, taking myself in with 
it. ’Twas dark, for though the window was open the 
shades had been pulled all the way down, but after a 
minute I made out a girl in a long, white nightgown 
hanging by a rope from the high, brass bedpost. It was 
Fannie Gillespie that I knew well, having seen her 
come and go from Mrs. Horton’s for more than a year 
past.” 

He described Mrs. Horton’s collapse, the return of the 
young man with the neighboring doctor, his own orders 
and message to the precinct station, while spectators and 
grand jury alike listened with absorbed attention. Then 
he was excused, giving place to Agnes. 

The new witness was plainly nervous, but her sharp 
features bore a determined expression and she eyed the 
district attorney mutinously. 

After drawing from her a corroboration of the police¬ 
man’s testimony he asked: 

“You’d waited on Miss Gillespie at the table and taken 
care of her room since she came to board at Mrs. 
Horton’s ?” 

“Yes, sir.” 


ARRAIGNED 


99 

“You also had charge of her mail and answered the 
telephone calls which came for her?” 

“I did. She had lots of both, and my hands were full 
remembering the things to tell one gentleman and an¬ 
other.” Agnes’ nasal tones had quickened as though she 
feared an interruption but the prosecutor countered 
smoothly: 

“Miss Gillespie was popular, you mean ?” 

“She’d always followers dangling after her and kept 
them going real smart and clever.” 

It would have been impossible to tell from her tone 
whether she intended to convey admiration or censure, 
but the point told and the district attorney went on 
hastily: 

“Miss Gillespie confided in you, then?” 

“I’ve eyes in my head!” Agnes retorted, while a faint 
titter ran through the crowd of spectators. “There was 
no need of her telling me things.” 

The judge rebuked her sternly and then the prosecutor 
asked: 

“Then did you observe when the prisoner at the bar 
began paying marked attention to Fannie Gillespie?” 

Agnes nodded. 

“Yes, sir. She’d been making eyes at him for months, 
but he couldn’t see her, then all of a sudden he started 
taking her around and it was all up with him.” 

The tenor of her reply was unmistakable now and a 
wrangle ensued to have it stricken from the records, but it 
had registered, and when the prosecutor strove to establish 
personal animosity on Agnes’ part toward the dead girl 


IGO 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


he signally failed. She left the stand, a distinct feather 
in the cap of the accused and Dr. Vaughn was sworn in. 

He recapitulated the incidents of the morning when 
the tragedy was discovered, detailing the obvious cause 
of death and approximate hour at which it had taken 
place, and then Sterett took him in hand. 

“Doctor, have you ever in your professional capacity, 
encountered a death by hanging before?” 

“Yes. Two of them, in fact.” The doctor stroked 
his neatly clipped beard with flexible, tapering fingers. 

“Were they suicides or murders?” 

“Suicides, unquestionably. No doubt was entertained 
in either case.” 

“In your professional capacity, then, do you consider 
it likely or unlikely, possible or impossible, that a person 
could be forcibly taken from bed and hanged without the 
least disturbance or outcry which would reach some ears 
in a quiet, sleeping household?” 

This time the roar of objection was sustained but the 
seed had been planted and as the occupants of the jury 
box glanced inadvertently at one another, Mrs. Horton 
nudged her neighbor again. 

“Get that, Mis’ Moffat? Fighting right from the 
start, ain’t he ? I guess there won’t much pass by him!” 

Mrs. Moffat nodded with her finger on her lips. She 
had lost the next name called, but the stocky, thickset, 
sandy-haired figure which mounted the stand was one she 
remembered. It was the detective from headquarters, 
Lieutenant Stevenson. 

The spectators, too, evidently recalled his prominence 


ARRAIGNED 


IOI 


in the investigation when the case first reached the press, 
for a repressed murmur passed among them like a sibi¬ 
lant breeze, subsiding as the prosecutor began his 
questioning. 

The detective described his examination of the room in 
which the girl had died and his discovery of the com¬ 
promising letters which were submitted in evidence with¬ 
out protest from the defense. After whetting the curi¬ 
osity of the grand jury the district attorney craftily left 
it unsatisfied and switched the topic to Stevenson's inter¬ 
view with the landlady; her admission that she could 
conceive no motive for suicide on Fannie Gillespie's part, 
her tribute to the girl's high moral character and general 
popularity, and account of her growing nervousness dur¬ 
ing the final weeks of her life culminating in the appear¬ 
ance of fear. 

Mrs. Horton's broad face flushed and she compressed 
her lips when she heard herself quoted in the testimony, 
but the reference was soon concluded and, led by the 
prosecutor, Stevenson told of his survey of the roof, 
introducing in evidence also the rope which had sus¬ 
pended the body of Fannie Gillespie and the section of 
clothesline from which it had been severed. 

“Did you observe anything else on the roof ?” District 
Attorney Harker asked. 

“Yes, sir. Footprints,” replied the detective promptly. 

“Were they those of a man or a woman?” 

“A woman.” 

“Will you tell the court, Lieutenant Stevenson, how 
you came to this conclusion?” 


102 


BRIGHT. LIGHTS 


“I found the shoe that had made them and proved its 
ownership.” 

There was a sudden stir far back among the spectators 
and Caroline, resplendent in a bright purple gown and 
feathered hat, started to rise from her chair, but feeling 
curious, alien eyes upon her she subsided. 

“Do you recognize this shoe?” The prosecutor held 
up the large but dilapidated specimen of footwear which 
the witness had used in his investigation and the latter 
nodded. 

“Yes, that’s the one. I found it with its mate down in 
the back yard of Mrs. Horton’s house and Agnes said it 
belonged to the cook, and that she wore them hanging 
out wash, there and on the roof. I took it up to the roof 
and found it fitted perfectly into the prints; the only 
prints there.” 

A low mutter came from the indignant owner of the 
shoe, but it was lost in the district attorney’s next 
question. 

“Were there any further indications on the roof?” 

“None that I saw. I went from there down to the 
room in which the body was found.” 

He continued, describing its furnishings and the 
clothing and toilet articles with the most minute detail, 
as well as the contents of the trunk. When he came to 
the photographs they were admitted in evidence and at 
length the subject of the letters was broached again. 
With telling effect the prosecutor quoted from them, 
reading aloud to the grand jury the most damaging pas¬ 
sages written by Henry Jordan in the first bitter moments 


ARRAIGNED 


103 


of his disillusionment, and although there was little out¬ 
ward manifestation of it the veering attitude of the men 
who sat in judgment could be almost felt. 

Then Stevenson continued his story. Henry Jordan 
had admitted his infatuation for Fannie Gillespie, but 
only when he saw that denial would be useless; he had 
been confused when the notes were produced but con¬ 
fessed having written them, declaring that he had been 
“wild with jealousy and disappointment.” He asked if he 
were being accused of her murder before the suggestion 
of it was made to him and did not deny it, merely re¬ 
minding his questioner that the girl’s door had been 
found locked on the inside; a trifling and irrelevant de¬ 
tail when entrance could have been as easily gained 
through the window. 

In his ensuing examination of the witness, Sterett 
tried by every artifice to amend his former testimony 
so as to mitigate its damning force, but Stevenson was 
wary and not to be shaken and as he left the stand it was 
apparent that the authorities had indeed scored. 

Then a name was called at which the listeners gazed 
questioningly at each other and Mrs. Horton grasped 
the arm of the buyer from Ohio in troubled amazement. 

“Evelyn Trimble.” 

A pale, angular woman with smooth bands of fair hair 
under her plain hat repeated the oath in a calm, low 
voice which penetrated to the uttermost corner of the 
great room. 

“What is your profession, Miss Trimble?” the district 
attorney queried with urbane courtesy. 


104 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“I am a graduate nurse.” 

“What in the world-?” Mrs. Horton began, but 

Mrs. Moffat silenced her. 

“Were you actively employed on the nineteenth and 
twentieth of last May?” 

“Yes, sir. From the first to the twenty-eighth on a 
pneumonia case.” 

“Where?” 

“At Number Three-twenty-seven B. West Forty- 
seventh Street.” The reply came with quiet precision 
but the effect on several of her hearers was significant. 

“That's just back of us!” Mrs. Horton exclaimed in an 
irrepressible whisper. “What on earth can she know 
about this?” 

“Were you on day or night duty, Miss Trimble?” 

“Night duty, sir. My hours were from eight to 
eight.” 

“Where was your patient’s room located ?” The 
prosecutor’s tones were bland. 

“On the third floor, at the rear of the house; a private 
bath adjoined, also looking out on the rear.” 

“The view from the windows of your patient’s room 
and that of the bath was of the back yards?” 

“And the backs of the houses on the south side of 
Forty-eighth Street,” Miss Trimble nodded, and added: 
“The rear of Number Three-twenty-six A. was directly 
opposite.” 

The purport of the questioning was apparent now to 
the spectators and again they stirred expectantly, but the 
district attorney continued without pause: 



ARRAIGNED 


105 

“Were you in the habit of glancing from these 
windows ?” 

“Occasionally, when my patient did not require my 
attention.” 

“Did you notice any particular window more than 
others?” 

“Yes. The single one on the extreme right of the 
top floor of Number Three-twenty-six A.—my right as 
I faced it, I mean,” the witness explained. “I was 
curious about it for there was a light there almost con¬ 
stantly.” 

“Did you observe it on the night of the nineteenth 
and twentieth of last May?” 

“I did. The window was open but the white shade 
drawn and the light on at eight o’clock when I came on 
duty. At nine when <1 gave my patient a stimulant I 
noticed from the bathroom where I rinsed the spoon that 
the light was out in the room opposite, but at eleven 
when I administered an opiate it had been turned on 
again and a figure was plainly outlined against the 
shade.” Miss Trimble paused and added: “It was that 
of a woman in profile with both arms raised, removing 
her hat; a small woman very slender and girlish. I had 
seen it nearly every evening in that room since I went 
on the case.” 

“Please tell the gentlemen of the jury if you noted 
anything else that night?” 

“Nothing for more than two hours. My patient was 
restless and demanded my attention constantly, but at 
twenty minutes past one I went into the bathroom once 


io6 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


more to heat some milk. I remember the time because 
I noted it on my chart. The milk bottle was in a small 
ice chest under the window and as I removed it I glanced 
out and up to that opposite window. At that instant the 
light there was extinguished.” 

“Did you consider that worthy of note?” 

“Yes, because the light was frequently out until that 
hour or even later, but from whatever time it was lighted, 
when the evening was far advanced until morning be¬ 
tween seven and eight o’clock, that light was always 
there. It was never put out, never on one single night!” 


CHAPTER IX 


THE CASE AGAINST HENRY 

W HEN the trained nurse made her curious an¬ 
nouncement in an unemotional, positive tone 
there was an instant of silence and then a 
murmur arose, but the sharp beat of the gavel from the 
bench broke in upon it, and it died away in a stillness so 
profound that the very air seemed to vibrate. 

The effect upon the grand jury had been scarcely less 
significant than on the spectators, but the accused man 
betrayed the most marked reaction. His whole body 
straightened and bent forward slowly, his pale face still 
leaden and as rigid as though carved in stone, but his 
haggard eyes seemed to bore into those of the woman 
on the witness stand with a tense, eager questioning in 
their depths. 

“That room was invariably illuminated from late in 
the evening until after daylight ?” 

“Yes. On a few occasions it was not extinguished 
from the time I came on duty till I left, but invariably 
there was a light there later, whether the room had been 
dark earlier or not.” 

“Thank you.” The prosecutor nodded and turned 
with a slight smile to Lockwood Sterett. 

107 


io8 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Miss Trimble,” began the attorney as he rose. “You 
are positive of the date of this occurrence?” 

“Yes. When I read the afternoon papers and realized 
the young woman's death must have taken place in that 
room it was naturally impressed upon my memory.” 

“You were certain of the number of the house and the 
Ideation of the room?” 

“The newspapers described that and when I returned 
to my case that evening I was curious enough to walk 
past the house on Forty-eighth Street, counting the num¬ 
bers from the corner,” she responded. “I had just put 
on my uniform when a man called to interview the mem¬ 
bers of the household and I was summoned. It was a 
detective from headquarters; the one who has testified 
before you now. I told him what I have just repeated.” 

“Had you spoken about the light happening to have 
been extinguished in that room the night before to any¬ 
one else previous to that moment?” Sterett put the 
question without seeming to choose his words deliber¬ 
ately, but a slight frown appeared on Miss Trimble’s 
forehead. 

“I mentioned having seen the light go out to the parlor¬ 
maid who admitted me to the house,” she replied with 
emphasis. “It was when she asked if I had heard what 
happened.” 

“Did she ask if you had heard of a murder?” he de¬ 
manded quickly. 

The nurse shook her head. 

“No, if I had heard of the young woman’s suicide 
there. It was not until the morning papers appeared 


THE CASE AGAINST HENRY 


109 

next day that we learned an arrest had been made on 
suspicion.” 

Noon recess was announced as Sterett excused her, 
and Mrs. Horton repaired with her companion to a small 
restaurant nearby, where after giving their order a trou¬ 
bled silence fell between them. The landlady was the 
first to break it. 

“I don’t believe that light being put out means any¬ 
thing, though Fannie did seem to keep the gas on the 
whole blessed night!” she exclaimed. “That nurse was 
only trying to make herself important. I never had one 
under my roof yet that wasn’t more nuisance, one way 
or another, than the whole houseful of boarders, and talk 
the legs off an iron pot, besides! Mis’ Moffat, how does 
it look to you; for Henry, I mean? Do you think Mr. 
Sterett’s going to have a hard time getting him off ?” 

“It’s too early to say, now,” Mrs. Moffat replied 
evasively. “He hasn’t begun his side of the hearing 
yet, you know, and he may have witnesses we haven’t 
heard of.” 

“Like the way the district attorney sprung that woman 
just now?” Mrs. Horton nodded, smiling suddenly to 
herself. “I shouldn’t wonder if he did pull something 
the authorities wasn’t looking for! Still, to anybody not 
knowing Henry and just taking what’s been brought out 
so far it looks bad—or would if Fannie had actually been 
murdered, which ain’t possible!” 

She paused, thinking again of Eileen Gaffney’s story 
about Ward, the race driver, and a shudder passed 
through her corpulent frame. She had considered him 


no 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


merely as another victim of Fannie’s coquetry who might 
just as reasonably be suspected by the police as Henry, 
but equally innocent. Could he actually have broken in 
her house that night? 

What use had Sterett made of the information given 
him by Eileen? Mrs. Horton had seen him but rarely 
since, and he had vouchsafed nothing as to the course 
he meant to pursue. Had he been in touch with Eileen 
again to coach her if she should be called upon to tes¬ 
tify? 

As the question entered her mind it brought a new 
train of thought which she voiced aloud. 

“I just can’t believe there was anybody there, Mis’ 
Moffat, but I’ll likely be called to the stand myself this 
afternoon; at least, Mr. Sterett said the last time I saw 
him that they’d want my testimony very early in the 
proceedings. I was all fixed to tell that grand jury a 
few things it wouldn’t hurt ’em to know, but he said I 
was only to answer questions and try not to show whether 
I was for or against Henry; that it would hurt and not 
help him if I did. I guess he knows his business, but 
it’s going to be mighty hard!” 

The ordeal came sooner than she had expected, for 
barely had court opened for the afternoon session when 
she heard her name rapped out in the clerk’s loud, per¬ 
emptory tones and, not trusting herself to glance toward 
the prisoner or his attorney, she took the stand. 

With Lockwood Sterett’s instructions in mind she met 
the gaze of the prosecutor almost affably as he rose. 

“What is your full name?” 


THE CASE AGAINST HENRY 


hi 


“Julia Louise Horton, born Fleming.” She drew a 
deep breath. 

“You conduct a boarding-house at Number Three- 
twenty-six West Forty-eighth Street, this city?” 

“Yes.” 

“Fannie Gillespie was a guest of yours for fourteen 
months prior to her death ?” 

“Yes.” 

“When was the last time you saw her alive?” 

“Just after dinner the night before—the nineteenth. 
I met her in the hall as she was going out.” 

“Alone?” 

“Yes.” Mrs. Horton opened her lips as though to 
amplify her statement and then thought better of it. 

“Did she say where she was going?” 

“For a dance with one of her gentlemen friends; she 
didn’t tell me which one, nor where she was going to 
meet him.” 

“Do you know when she returned?” 

“No, but it was around eleven or maybe a little before; 
there was a light in her room between eleven and twelve. 
Then I went to bed.” 

• “What was the first you knew of her murder ?” 

“I don’t know it yet.” Her voice was still calmly un¬ 
ruffled and her expression mild. “I don’t know as there 
was any murder.” 

“Well, then, what was the first you knew that some¬ 
thing was wrong?” The district attorney smiled indul¬ 
gently but his eyes hardened. 

“When Agnes knocked on my door while I was getting 


112 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


dressed and told me she couldn’t get any answer from 
Fannie. I went up myself and called and pounded, but 
it wasn’t any use.” 

“So you sent for a police officer? Why did you do 
that, Mrs. Horton? Did you suspect that a crime had 
been committed?” 

“Not murder!” she declared quickly. “I knew Fannie 
must be in and I thought she’d been took sick or maybe 
even died sudden in the night, though there wasn’t any¬ 
thing the matter with her that I knew of. I’d never had 
a mite of trouble in all the twenty years I been taking 
boarders, but just the same I made up my mind it’d be 
a good thing to have somebody around when that door 
was opened!” 

“You have heard the testimony of Officer Burke; is 
it correct in every particular?” 

It was the question for which Mrs. Horton had waited 
and her lips relaxed from their unusual tension. 

“He didn’t say that it was him told us what had hap¬ 
pened in there.” 

She paused and the prosecutor prompted her. 

“Go on! What did he tell you ?” 

“That Fannie had killed herself.” 

A low murmur broke out once more, but it was quelled 
by the district attorney’s voice. 

“Officer Burke said that ? What were his exact words, 
do you recall them ?” 

“He said: ‘Holy Saints! She’s done the Dutch!’ I 
don’t know what happened then; I fainted dead away and 
when I come to I was in my own room.” 


THE CASE AGAINST HENRY 


113 

Urged by searching questions she recounted the further 
incidents of the morning culminating in the departure of 
Henry Jordan with the detective. 

“Lieutenant Stevenson has testified that you told him 
no possible cause existed for suicide on Fanny Gillespie’s 
part. Do you recall that statement, Mrs. Horton?” 

“1 recall not making it!” she retorted with spirit. “I 
said there wasn’t any reason why she should kill herself 
as far as I knew, and there wasn’t!” 

“Yet according to your statement to Lieutenant Ste¬ 
venson you noticed during the last few weeks of Fannie 
Gillespie’s life that she was in fear of something,” the 
prosecutor persisted. “Didn’t you speak to her about 
it?” 

“No. I thought she was just nervous from the rush 
of work at the store and then going out so much, too. 
It never came to me that she might be scared of anything 
till I got telling Mr. Stevenson about it after she was 
dead.” 

“What did you believe her to be afraid of ?” 

Mrs. Horton flushed. 

“Nothing! It was the detective put that idea in my 
head, himself!” 

That ended her testimony for the prosecutor and after 
a few general questions he turned her over to the coun¬ 
sel for the prisoner without having once mentioned the 
accused man, and Lockwood Sterett seized upon the 
opportunity to turn it to his instant advantage. With 
care not to reveal her ingenious partisanship too palpably 
to the jury he obtained from her a glowing tribute to 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


114 

Henry Jordan’s character and steadiness of purpose, and 
then asked abruptly: 

“Mrs. Horton, what did you know of the attachment 
between Fannie Gillespie and Henry Jordan?” 

“Nothing that either of them told me,” she responded. 
“It was just as I said to the detective, I did think he cared 
an awful lot for her ’long in the winter and she seemed 
to like him, too, though not so much as he did her. Any¬ 
ways, she stopped going ’round with other fellers for 
a while, but all of a sudden she started again and he sort 
of went back to the way he’d been before he met her, up 
to his neck in business by day and working on his inven¬ 
tion at night. I didn’t hear of any quarrel between ’em, 
and they always spoke real friendly when they met in 
the hall or at meals.” 

“Detective Lieutenant Stevenson has testified you told 
him the girl, Fannie Gillespie, grew increasingly nervous 
prior to her death and you corroborated this just now.” 
Sterett paused as though in warning and Mrs. Horton 
took a fresh grip upon herself, conscious of Henry Jor¬ 
dan’s shadowed eyes upon her. “How did this nervous¬ 
ness manifest itself?” 

“She was awful restless,” Mrs. Horton began. “Never 
still, it seemed like, and if she happened to sit with her 
back to an open door or window I noticed she kept twist¬ 
ing to look behind her.” 

As she paused for breath Sterett interrupted quickly. 

“When the defendant was in the same room, where 
she could see him without turning? Think, Mrs. Hor¬ 
ton; this is important.” 


THE CASE AGAINST HENRY 


115 

The admonition was intended for the benefit of the 
grand jury, but the witness accepted it in good faith. 

“II don't need to think, for it was mostly in the dining 
room I noticed it and Henry Jordan always sat right 
across the table, facing her, while the door was just back 
of her and the basement window at one side; she kept 
looking from one to the other of 'em, but more often the 
window." 

Mrs. Moffat, listening, remembered that look as she 
had herself observed it at dinner the night of her arrival, 
and with the thought there came another, later memory. 
It startled her so that she was oblivious to the next ques¬ 
tion from Sterett and only returned to the present when 
Mrs. Horton spoke again. 

“Yes. When Fannie went to work mornings she'd 
look up and down the block first from the vestibule door 
and then hurry to the cars as though somebody was after 
her-!" 

“I object!" The voice of the district attorney cut 
sharply in upon her. “I object to the witness' statement 
of theory, and I ask that it be stricken from the rec¬ 
ords!" 

“Objection sustained." Judge Carberry, presiding, 
nodded his gray head. “Do not qualify the facts by any 
suppositions of your own." 

Mrs. Horton flushed crimson once more and bit her lip, 
but counsel for the defense asked encouragingly: 

“You saw Fannie Gillespie look first from the door 
before she hurried to the cars?" 

“Yes. Whenever I happened to be around at the time 



n6 BRIGHT LIGHTS 

she started for the store.” Mrs. Horton’s tones were low 
but undaunted. 

“Do you know whether or not the defendant was still 
in the house on those occasions ?” 

“Oh, yes! She knew he never left for business until 
half an hour later.” 

“That is all, thank you.” Sterett seated himself and 
Mrs. Horton, at a nod from the clerk, returned to her 
place beside Mrs. Moffat, but the latter gave her only an 
absent-minded glance. 

A stranger succeeded her when the name Benjamin 
Newell was called. He was in the late twenties, with 
sleek, dark hair and a blatantly striped suit that fitted his 
narrow-shouldered frame with pitiless perfection. His 
manner was the aggressively cheerful, brisk one of the 
professional showman and he described himself in loud 
and satisfied accents as the owner of the ‘Avalanche 
Ride/ the biggest money-maker at Knickerbocker 
Beach. 

He had known Fannie Gillespie for several months 
and taken her out a lot; she was a little queen, all right, 
pretty and a swell dresser and good company, but there 
wasn’t any nonsense between them. He wasn’t the kind 
to fall hard for any dame; they was just friends. The 
last time he saw her alive was on Wednesday night, the 
eighteenth of May; he took her to a show and then for a 
dance and a bite to the Venetian Gardens, leaving her at 
her boarding-house a little after one o’clock. 

She seemed to be in her usual spirits, but at supper 
she acted kind of troubled and finally told him that a 


THE CASE AGAINST HENRY 


ii 7 

guy she had broken with didn’t take it right and she was 
getting worried for fear he’d do something crazy. She 
didn’t say who the guy was and he didn’t ask; he didn’t 
think much about it till he read what had happened to 
her and it almost knocked him cold, for she’d made a 
date to come down to the Beach again the next Sunday— 
she had been down the previous one—and she sure hadn’t 
any notion of killing herself, that he could swear. 

“You are positive Fannie did not mention the man’s 
name?” Sterett asked when the witness had been relin¬ 
quished to him. 

“Positive!” 

“That is all.” 

Eileen Gaffney was the next to be put on the stand, and 
throughout the district attorney’s questioning she kept 
her eyes fixed on the counsel for the defense, but her 
testimony merely evinced further proof of Fannie Gil¬ 
lespie’s popularity and love of amusement. Incidentally 
it revealed her own point of view in regard to the affair 
between the dead girl and Henry Jordan. 

“Did Fannie Gillespie tell you why she quarrelled with 
the defendant?” Sterett rose in his turn. 

' “Oh, yes! He wasn’t a spender and Fannie liked the 
high spots,” Eileen replied candidly. “Then, he wanted 
to be engaged right away and she couldn’t see it, not 
being tied for ever so long with no prospect of the kind 
of a home she’d want, and anyhow she hadn’t any idea of 
settling down.” 

“Did she ever tell you, subsequent to their quarrel, 
that she was worried, or afraid of Henry Jordan?” 


n8 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


Eileen shrugged until her imitation fox scarf touched 
her hat brim. 

“She never even spoke about him!” Her tone was 
deprecating and she flushed as she glanced quickly at the 
prisoner’s set, unseeing eyes, “I don’t remember her 
mentioning his name at all.” 

This concluded her testimony and as the afternoon 
advanced she was followed on the stand by another young 
saleslady from Louisette’s who told of her friendship 
with the dead girl, and, led by the prosecutor, she related 
an incident in the cloakroom of the shop on the morning 
of the day before Fannie Gillespie was found hanging 
to her bedpost. 

“She was fixing her hair up high, the way Louisette 
made her wear it to try on hats; all of us were there 
except Miss Gaffney, and she’s generally late.” The girl 
was telling her story with morbid relish, cognizant of 
her fleeting moment in the spotlight. “We were talking 
about our gentlemen friends and all at once Miss Gil¬ 
lespie said she had one that she wished she’d never seen. 
She said she used to be kind of crazy about him but now 
he just made her tired and she couldn’t stand him. She 
didn’t tell us his name, but he’d turned nasty and 
threatened her.” 

“Did Fannie Gillespie say what this man had threat¬ 
ened to do?” the district attorney asked. “Can you 
recall her exact words?” 

“I should say I can! She said he’d threatened to 
kill her if she wouldn’t marry him and he was the strong, 
quiet kind who meant it!” The witness paused with a 


THE CASE AGAINST HENRY 


119 

shudder and then went on: “She said,—‘Don’t be sur¬ 
prised, girls, if you hear something’s happened to me! 
I’ve got a feeling that he’s going to get me yet!” 

The members of the grand jury were leaning forward 
eagerly with their eyes fixed upon the girl on the stand, 
and an answering shudder seemed to sweep through the 
thronged courtroom as the prosecutor turned to his col¬ 
league, the attorney for the accused. Mrs. Horton’s 
glance travelled swiftly, too, to Lockwood Sterett, but 
to her consternation he merely shook his head. 

A low buzz of comment like a mighty swarming of 
bees zoomed on the air to be abruptly silenced by the dis¬ 
trict attorney’s trenchant announcement: 

“The State has no further witness to examine.” 


CHAPTER X 


OPENED BATTERIES 

D INNER that night was a distinct failure at Mrs. 
Horton’s boarding-house, but no one noticed that 
the mutton was underdone, the potatoes scorched, 
and the cherry pie a soggy, leaden mass. The food 
would have been scarcely touched in any case, for 
Myrtle Harris was too avidly curious as to the day’s pro¬ 
ceedings to eat, Edgar North was out, and Marian Gray, 
the latest guest, sat looking the questions she was too 
tactful to utter. 

“He just seemed like a graven image!” Mrs. Horton 
wiped away a furtive tear as she replied to a query of 
Myrtle. “You’d have thought he’d been dead and buried 
himself! No wonder they call that place the 'Tombs’! 
He didn’t act as if he even heard what was going on ex¬ 
cept once, when that nurse was telling about the light 
going out in poor Fannie’s room!” 

“Her story is in the evening papers,” Myrtle nodded. 
“They seem to think it’ll go against Henry Jordan, 
sure!” 

“Stuff and nonsense!” the landlady retorted with a 
sudden return of her old vigor. “There’s nothing in the 
world that’ll make ’em indict Henry, but they’re making 
120 


OPENED BATTERIES 


121 


it all out worse’n I ever dreamed they could! What do 
you think, Mr. Darley?” 

“It ought to be proved conclusively that the poor, dear 
child killed herself or that some one else did it,” Simeon 
Darley shook his head weightily. “Otherwise, even if 
Henry isn’t indicted, it will stand against him for the 
rest of his life.” 

Mrs. Moffat took no part in the conversation. She 
sat staring at her plate, her forehead furrowed with 
thought, and the humorous quirk of her lips set in a 
straight, unyielding line. With the conclusion of the 
pretense at a meal, however, the frown had disappeared, 
and when a little later Mrs. Horton went to her room 
for a talk she found it empty. 

“Where was you last night?” the landlady asked as 
they set out together for the Court of General Sessions 
the next morning. “I looked for you, but you must’ve 
got in real late.” 

“I did.” There was an oddly repressed note in the 
voice of the buyer from Ohio. “There was something I 
had to attend to, even at the last minute.—District 
Attorney Harker closed the presentation of the evidence 
in almost record time, didn’t he?” 

“Well, he called everybody he could think of except 
Caroline’s cat!” Mrs. Horton did not note the quick 
change of topic. “I wonder who Mr. Sterett will bring 
forward? I’ve got a kind of an idea, but maybe there’s 
more up his sleeve that I don’t know about. I hope so, 
for Henry’s sake; that grand jury looked, when court 
adjourned yesterday, as though they’d a’ready made up 


122 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


what minds they’ve got that he was guilty, without wait¬ 
ing to hear his side of it. Mr. Sterett didn’t act as if the 
nurse’s story about the gas was any blow to him, though; 
I’d like to know what he’s got to offset it.” 

Her question was answered in part immediately after 
court opened, when the counsel for the prisoner called his 
first witness, and she was all but stupefied with astonish¬ 
ment at hearing the name of her senior boarder. 

“Simeon Darley.” 

A' sartorial wonder in a high-waisted suit of bottle 
green, Simeon rose and came forward, taking the oath 
with vast dignity and importance. 

“Where were you, Mr. Darley, on the evening of the 
seventeenth of May, last?” 

“At Scully’s gymnasium, from eight-thirty till ten- 
thirty,” the witness replied promptly. “After that I 
played a little pool downstairs and got home to Mrs. 
Horton’s at about eleven-thirty.” 

“That was Tuesday evening?” 

“Tuesday, yes.” 

“Did you see any one you knew on your way home?” 

“Not until I turned the corner of Forty-eighth Street. 
Then I saw Mrs. Moffat, a guest who had just arrived 
that afternoon, walking ahead of me with Henry Jordan. 
I entered the house right behind them.” 

“Did they speak to you?” 

“Neither of them saw me. They said ‘good night’ in 
the hall and Mrs. Moffat went to her room on the second 
floor, but Henry Jordan stopped to hunt for some matches 
on the hall table and I asked him to come up to my room 


OPENED BATTERIES 


123 

for a smoke. He did, and we talked for a long time. 
It was after three when he left me.” 

“Do you remember the conversation?” 

“Not all of it,” Simeon paused. “We talked about 
a great many things; his invention and our summer vaca¬ 
tion plans, and then things of general interest.” 

“You say that it was after three when the defendant 
left you. Do you know this positively?” 

“Yes, for I looked at my watch, as I wound it imme¬ 
diately after he had gone, and it hasn’t gained or lost a 
minute in years. It was twenty past three.” There was 
a note of conscious pride in Simeon’s tones. 

“So that the defendant was with you in your room 
from shortly before midnight until twenty minutes after 
three in the morning?” 

“He was.” 

“Thank you, that will do,” Sterett turned with a bow 
to the surprised district attorney who arose but contented 
himself with a few perfunctory questions as to the wit¬ 
ness’ own friendship with the dead girl, and his observa¬ 
tion of the attachment which had formerly existed be¬ 
tween her and Henry Jordan. The replies were negli¬ 
gible and Simeon stepped smugly down from the stand. 

“Mrs. Elizabeth Moffat.” 

Mrs. Horton gave an audible gasp of surprise as her 
companion rose and advanced quietly. 

“What is your business, Mrs. Moffat?” Sterett asked 
when the oath had been administered. 

“I am buyer for Feingold & Son, of Columbia, Ohio,” 
she replied in a clear, steady voice. 


124 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“When were you here on your last trip ?” 

“In May. I arrived on the seventeenth, and went to 
Mrs. Horton’s, as I have done for years.” 

“You know the defendant?” 

“Very well. I met him at Mrs. Horton’s nearly three 
years ago and he has been there during each of my semi¬ 
annual visits since.” 

“Where did you go on the evening of the seventeenth ?” 

“To a motion picture with Mr. Jordan. We stopped 
for a soda afterward and returned to the boarding-house 
between half-past eleven and twelve o’clock. I thanked 
him and retired immediately to my room, which is on 
the second floor, front.” 

“You went to sleep at once?” 

“No, not for several hours. I was nervous from the 
effect of the long train journey and anxious about some 
details of the business that had brought me to New 
York.” 

“Did you hear any sound outside your room?” 

“Yes. Another woman guest came in and passed my 
door, going on upstairs; I recognized her step and the 
scent of the perfume I had noticed upon her at dinner. 
Then a church clock a block or so away struck twelve, 
and after that I heard nothing more but the striking of 
that clock for two hours. Just after two the front door 
closed again very softly and lighter footsteps passed my 
door. I recognized them, too; it was the only other 
woman guest at the house, Miss Gillespie. Right after 
that I heard a taxi start from a few doors down the 
street and go away.” 


OPENED BATTERIES 


125 


“Was that all you heard?” 

“All I heard, yes, except the ordinary street sounds at 
night, but I was provoked with myself because I could 
not sleep and that taxi had scarcely reached the corner 
when I got up, put on a robe, and went to the window. 
At first the street seemed to be quite deserted and then 
all at once I saw a man lurking in the areaway just 
opposite; his face was turned toward me, a white blur in 
the shadows. He was watching our house.” 

Mrs. Moffat paused and involuntarily her glance rested 
for a moment on the prisoner. He was leaning slightly 
forward in his chair, gazing at her with the same fixed 
intensity of questioning as he had shown when the nurse 
testified on the previous day, but now there was a faint 
flush on his drawn face and a light in his eyes that had 
not been there before. 

A stir of latent excitement ran through the courtroom 
and Sterett asked: 

“Did you see this man move?” 

“Only about the area. I watched until he drew back 
into the deeper shadows and disappeared.” 

“This was after two o’clock in the morning?” 

“Between two and half-past. I watched the man 
across the street for ten or fifteen minutes and then, 
when I decided that he must have gone, I went back to 
bed. The church clock struck the half-hour and that 
was the last I heard before I fell asleep.” 

(The purpose of this line of inquiry was plain at last 
and as it dawned fully upon the minds of the spectators 
the counsel for the prisoner switched it abruptly. 


126 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Were you well ac quainted with Miss Fannie 
Gillespie ?” 

“Yes. I had met her on two previous visits to Mrs. 
Horton’s.” 

“What was your first conversation with her after your 
arrival last May?” 

“She greeted me when v she returned from work that 
afternoon. She told me of her change of employment; 
that was all.” 

“Did you talk with her again?” 

“Only the general conversation at the table, until 
Thursday afternoon.” 

“Did you notice any change in her manner from your 
previous visits?” 

“Yes. It was apparent at dinner the first evening.” 

“Will you describe this change?” Sterett’s tones 
deepened. 

“She talked and laughed in a forced, unnatural way 
and kept twitching about nervously and watching the 
area window, at the end of the dining-room. This was 
not so noticeable at breakfast the next morning, but it 
was at dinner again, and each night following.” 

“When did you have your next talk with Fannie 
Gillespie ?” 

“Late on Thursday afternoon. I invited her to my 
room and gave her a box of candy which had been sent 
to me.” 

“Mrs. Moffat, will you repeat what you can recall of 
the conversation?” 

“She talked about dress and ‘parties’ and her distaste 


OPENED BATTERIES 


1 27 


for work. I mentioned marriage, but she said she was 
having too good a time to think of that for ages yet” 

“Did Fannie Gillespie say anything about her plans 
for that evening?” 

“Yes. She said she was going to dance with an auto 
race driver whom she didn’t care for any more, but he 
was leaving the city on the midnight train.” Mrs. Moffat 
replied without hesitation as though the query were 
anticipated and Mrs. Horton gasped again. So this had 
all been fixed! Her boarder must have gone to Sterett 
the night before! 

“Was the defendant mentioned?” the counsel for the 
prisoner went on. 

“Yes. I spoke of him and Miss Gillespie said he was 
a ‘dear’ and she used to be crazy about him, but he was 
dreadfully serious and didn’t know what it was to have 
a good time. That was all.” 

“Did you hold any further conversation with her?” 

“Yes. She returned at half-past ten that night and I 
heard her sob in the hall. I opened my door and asked 
what was the matter and she came in and told me.” Mrs. 
Moffat related faithfully what had taken place between 
her and the girl now dead, and when she concluded a buzz 
of comment arose from all sides but it was quelled quickly 
as Sterett relinquished her to the examination of the 
authorities. 

It was merely a perfunctory attempt to unsettle her 
certainty about the man in the opposite areaway and as 
she took her seat, Mrs. Horton turned to her reproach¬ 
fully. 


128 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered. “Why 
didn’t you ever say anything about that man? Maybe 
he’d followed Fannie home, maybe he was that ‘Frank’!” 

“Jack Rogers!” the clerk called, and from the far back 
of the courtroom a slim, elegant young man came for¬ 
ward. His blond hair was parted in the middle, his 
trousers beautifully creased, and he carried himself with 
studied aplomb. 

Describing himself as an artist of the screen drama, 
he admitted that he had greatly admired Miss Gillespie; 
she had accompanied him to a ball at Brewster Hall on 
the evening of the seventeenth and he had brought her 
home in a taxi just after two in the morning. Miss 
Gillespie had been in the best of spirits and seemed per¬ 
fectly happy. 

“Was that the last time you saw her alive?” Sterett 
inquired. 

“No. I was at a table in the Jazz-way restaurant 
with some leading members of my profession on Thurs¬ 
day evening, the nineteenth.” Mr. Rogers shot his cuffs 
and gazed complacently out over the head of the attorney. 
“Miss Gillespie came in with a man I did not know, but 
she bowed to me as they took a table, so I went over and 
greeted her. She introduced me to the person with her; 
his name was Frank Ward. I invited her to dance and 
the fellow made no objection; in fact we danced together 
several times and all at once he became infuriated and 
made an impossible scene!” 

The slight lisp was in droll contrast to his shocked 
accents and Sterett asked quickly: 


OPENED BATTERIES 


129 


“What did he say?” 

“I really can’t remember.—I withdrew!” He exam¬ 
ined the shining gloss on his nails critically. 

“Where did you go?” 

“To the Monks’ Club. I remained there until after 
midnight and then started for home.” 

“Did you reach there without incident, Mr. Rogers?” 

The young man blinked and his long, curling lashes 
swept his cheeks, in which a dull flush rose slowly. Then 
he smiled. 

“Ah, you mean the motor accident which the press 
made such a sensation out of?” 

“I mean what really happened to you, Mr. Rogers!” 
Sterett retorted. “May I remind you that you are under 
oath?” 

The flush deepened in the witness’ smooth cheeks. 

“And if I decline to answer?” He glanced uncertainly 
at the grave countenances of the grand jury and, read¬ 
ing no help there, he exclaimed in an injured tone: “I 
am not responsible for the version of the matter given 
out by my press agent! I was waylaid and assaulted as 
I reached the door of my apartment house—assaulted 
painfully by the ruffian, Frank Ward!” 

“He gave you no opportunity to defend yourself?” 

“I am not a pugilist!” The retort caused a wave of 
amusement through the courtroom and the witness glared 
angrily. “I attempted to remonstrate with him, but it 
was impossible. I was thrown to the sidewalk and un¬ 
mercifully pummelled, suffering injuries which caused me 
to remain in retirement for some time and compelled 


I 3 ° 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


me to lose a valuable contract. I discovered subsequently 
that the fellow got out of town on the earliest train in 
the morning and has not returned since.” 

He added the last sentence loftily with an obvious re¬ 
newal of his self-esteem. 

“When did you learn of Miss Gillespie’s death?” 

“From the afternoon papers. I was shocked, hor¬ 
ribly! I could conceive of no reason for her suicide, 
yet I cannot conceive that any one would have wished 
for her death!” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE GRAND JURY DECIDES 

CCX^RANK WARD.” 

The first witness of the afternoon session, who 
came forward with quick, firm strides, was tall 
and loose-limbed, with fiery black eyes and black hair 
falling in a long lock over his forehead. His nose was 
aquiline, his mouth set and hard, and he thrust out his 
prominent jaw as he eyed the counsel for the prisoner, 
who asked the preliminary questions and then plunged 
into his subject. 

“You knew Fannie Gillespie?” 

“I’ll say I did!” The words were rough and his tone 
bitter, but anguish looked from his eyes and there was 
pathos in his twisted smile. “I fell for her hard! I 
was going to quit the racing game last summer, but as 
soon as I began talking about a garage on the Post Road 
and a little cottage she threw me cold!” 

Instructed sternly to keep to literal replies to the ques¬ 
tions put to him, the grimness deepened in his face and 
his expression grew even more sullen. 

“You say that Fannie Gillespie refused you last sum¬ 
mer,” counsel for the prisoner went on. “How was it 
that you were much in her company during March, April, 
and May of this year?” 


i 3 2 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Because I met her again in February.” 

“You resumed your former relations ?” 

“She turned to me again for excitement because I was 
handy—and easy!” the witness replied through set teeth. 

“Will you describe the extent of your friendship dur¬ 
ing this period?” Sterett asked. 

“II didn’t get wise that she was only using me till about 
a month before I was going to Detroit, and it was just 
hell right up to—to the night of the nineteenth of May.” 

His voice had grown more low and now it faltered 
and stopped. Henry Jordan was regarding him fixedly 
and there was dead silence throughout the courtroom. 

“Did you ever threaten her ?” 

Abruptly the prisoner laughed. 

“I did! I wouldn’t have hurt her, though!” 

“Did you tell Fannie Gillespie you would fix her so 
that nobody else would want to go out with her?” 

“Yes!” 

“On another occasion when you had discovered her 
deceiving you, did you say she ought to have the lie 
choked back down her throat?” 

“Yes!” Ward threw back his head. “I’m not trying 
to deny it, nor that I beat up that movie pretty-boy for 
butting in on our last night together! Afterwards I 
went to Gilfay’s and left about one o’clock.” 

“What did you do until morning?” Sterett persisted. 

“I walked!” the witness declared tersely. “I found 
myself up in the Bronx around five o’clock, dead tired, 
but easier in my mind than I’d been for months be¬ 
cause I’d made up my mind to cut her out.” 


THE GRAND JURY DECIDES 


133 


“What happened after you made this decision?” 

“I got a fresh grip on myself and hurried back to my 
hotel to grab my things and beat it for the Detroit train; 
there was just time.” 

“When did you first learn of Fannie Gillespie’s 
death?” 

“A day or two later when I got hold of a New York 
paper.” 

Ward paused with a choke in his voice and Sterett 
took up a different line. 

“Where were you on Tuesday night, the seventeenth 
of last May?” 

“Out in my car. I ran to Greenwich and back, and 
I didn’t get in till around three in the morning.” 

“Did you stop anywhere?” 

“No. Just traveled.” 

“You were alone?” 

“Yes.” 

“What time did you leave the garage with your car 
that evening?” 

“Not till around eleven.” 

“So that from eleven till half-past three you were alone 
in your car, just traveling?” 

“That’s right!” Ward nodded, and that all but ended 
his testimony, for the district attorney had only one ques¬ 
tion to put to him when his turn came. 

“Mr. Ward, from your knowledge of Frances Gilles¬ 
pie’s character, are you of the opinion that she com¬ 
mitted suicide?” 

“Not in a million years!” came the emphatic answer. 


134 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“She hadn't a reason in the world and nobody toyed life 
and good times more than she did!" 

The witness who followed him was of vastly different 
caliber. Slender and white-haired, with a gentle manner 
and mild, fatherly voice, he gave his name as Pitt Mar¬ 
low, head of the firm of Marlow Brothers, manufac¬ 
turers of fireproof office furniture and employers of 
Henry Jordan since he left school. 

He testified to the young man’s character in the most 
glowing terms and then the clerk of the court called : 

“Henry Jordan!" 

Henry rose slowly as though impelled by some power 
beyond his own volition and made his way to the wit¬ 
ness stand, as unconscious of the guard who walked be¬ 
side him as he was of the throng of faces turned toward 
him, the scores of eyes fastened upon his erect but almost 
pathetically youthful figure. From the moment of his 
arraignment, his reactions had been those of a man seek¬ 
ing to throw off the thralldom of a hideous nightmare. 
This could not be he, facing the possibility of trial for 
his life! Fannie Gillespie was not dead! 

He took the oath in a low, steady tone, and the per¬ 
functory queries as to his age, birthplace, and employ¬ 
ment having been made, Lockwood Sterett paused, 
glanced about the courtroom, and then back to his client. 

“Mr. Jordan, I am going to ask you to tell the court 
exactly how you felt toward Fannie Gillespie, from the 
beginning of your acquaintanceship with her until the 
moment of the discovery of her death." 

A subdued, multisonous murmur passed through the 


THE GRAND JURY DECIDES 135 

crowd and Henry drew a deep breath. The moment had 
come! 

“I was introduced to Fannie Gillespie when she came 
to board with Mrs. Horton fourteen months before her 
death and I admired her greatly. Late last summer I 
began paying her attention and before I realized it she 
knew that I—cared for her and she gave me to under¬ 
stand that she cared, too.” 

He paused and the attorney prompted him. 

“In so many definite words?” 

“Oh, yes!” Henry found his voice again. “We talked 
about the future; looking back, though, I suppose I did 
most of the talking and planning, and she just listened, 
but I didn’t notice her lack of response then. Mean¬ 
while I was spending all I had saved in giving her the 
good times she was accustomed to, and she kept wanting 
more and more. At last, in February, things came to 
a showdown. She wouldn’t be engaged to me and stop 
going around with other men, and I was nearly at the 
end of my savings. Then she showed me the truth, that 
there wasn’t to be any future for us together; there never 
would have been from the beginning. She hadn’t ever 
meant to marry me! 

“I was almost crazy for awhile and I wrote her a 
couple of pretty desperate notes—the ones read in court 
here, and that the detective testified about. I put them 
in the vase in the hall where we used to exchange mes¬ 
sages. They didn’t make any difference, though, and I 
had to realize it was all over! It wasn’t her fault at 
all, it was mine! She had only taken what I offered, 


136 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


and if she let me believe what wasn’t so,—well, I ought 
to have known better than ever to think of it in the first 
place. She wasn’t to blame!” 

“Yet you didn’t feel that way when you wrote the 
letters ?” 

“I was too excited, too wretched, to think! I felt like 
going out and smashing something!” For an instant 
the haggard eyes burned and he clenched his hands. 
Then he relaxed slowly. “I hadn’t the least notion of 
doing any harm, I was just like a man in such pain that 
he beats his head against the wall!” 

“How long were you in this mood?” 

“Only for a little while. My feelings changed.” 

“When did this change come about?” 

“Very soon. Quicker than I knew it myself. I sort 
of woke up. I still had my work and the future, every¬ 
thing that had made me contented before I ever saw 
her.” 

Henry straightened as though a burden had dropped 
from his shoulders. The story had been told! They 
must believe him! 

“Do you recall the night of the nineteenth of May?” 
Sterett put the question with a change of tone. 

“Yes,” responded Henry. “After dinner I went out 
and strolled around until nearly midnight, and even then 
when I came home I wasn’t tired enough to sleep for I 
was worried.” 

“What were you worried about?” 

“I’d only learned that day about a patent that seemed 
to be on the same basic principle as the invention I had 


THE GRAND JURY DECIDES 


137 


been trying to perfect for more than a year. That night 
I walked up and down for more than an hour in my 
room. Finally I went to bed, and the next thing I knew 
it was morning and somebody was crying hysterically 
upstairs.” 

“That was the first thing you were conscious of after 
you retired the night before?” 

“Yes,” Henry nodded. “I looked at the watch under 
my pillow; it was twenty minutes after seven, I remem¬ 
ber. Miss Harris has the room directly over mine and 
I thought she must be ill and need a doctor. I dressed, 
all but my collar and coat, and opened the door. Then 
’way overhead from the top floor I heard a pounding 
and Mrs. Horton’s voice calling out distractedly, and I 
rushed up. She was beating on Fannie Gillespie’s door 
and crying to her to open it! I tried the knob and 
called, too, but I got no response and Mrs. Horton said 
she had sent for a policeman. Officer Burke came and 
broke down the door, and I was just at his heels as he 
entered. I—saw her hanging there!” 

He paused once more, shuddering, but Sterett would 
not allow the tension to drop. 

“Did you think she had been murdered?” 

The district attorney objected, but without avail. 

“No!” Henry exclaimed vehemently. “There wasn’t 
anjr question in my mind but that it was suicide! G[ 
vowed I’d find out if anybody had driven her to it and 
make them pay, but the detective found those notes I’d 
written to her and before I knew it I was under arrest, 
charged with murder!” 


i3§ 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Mr. Jordan.” The attorney’s voice held a note of 
profound gravity. “Do you solemnly swear that you 
know nothing of Fannie Gillespie’s death? Do you 
swear that you are innocent, so help you God?” 

“I do!” Low and shaking with emotion the reply 
came. “I had not been up to the top floor in months 
until I heard Mrs. Horton’s voice there that morning! I 
saw Fannie Gillespie leave the dining-room after dinner 
the night before and the next time I laid eyes upon her 
was when I followed the policeman into her room and 
saw her body hanging from the bedpost. 5 swear it! 
I swear before God that I know nothing of her death, I 
am innocent!” 

His voice rang out with passionate earnestness in which 
there was no hint of entreaty. He did not plead for 
belief, he stated a solemn truth with the seeming faith 
that it would carry its own conviction, and a wave of 
emotion swept the spectators. 

Before it reached hysteria, however, the presiding 
judge’s gavel descended and Sterett turned his client over 
to the waiting district attorney. 

For more than an hour the latter subjected Henry to 
a grilling cross-examination, but with a strength and 
self-control of which even those among the listeners who 
knew him best would not have dreamed him to be pos¬ 
sessed, he replied simply, clearly, and without evasion. 
There wasn’t any other woman in question, he had never 
cared for any one but the girl who was dead. He ad¬ 
mitted that to his knowledge she had not the slightest 
cause for suicide, and such a step seemed irreconcilable 


THE GRAND JURY DECIDES 


139 


with her character as he had conceived it. He had been 
furious, desperate, when she cast him aside, he had writ¬ 
ten those letters, every word, and fully meant them at 
the time. If they constituted a threat, he had threat¬ 
ened her, but without definite intention. He had met 
no one he knew on the night of the nineteenth during 
his walk, nor seen any member of the household on re¬ 
turning. 

Yes, he knew there were clothes-lines on the roof, he 
had often met Caroline, the cook, on the stairs, with a 
basket of laundry. He knew also about the hall closet 
on the top floor with the ladder which led to the roof, 
but he didn’t remember whether the closet door fastened 
with a bolt or key; he hadn’t been up there since the 
previous summer when the whole household ascended to 
watch a neighboring fire. Yes, he had possessed a jack¬ 
knife with sharp blades and his initials cut in the bone 
handle. He recalled using it some time during the spring, 
to whittle a wedge for his window which wouldn’t stay 
up, but he hadn’t seen it since. 

The district attorney introduced a knife of the sort 
Henry had described in evidence and he identified it 
readily as his. With a smile Harker laid it aside and 
announced himself as satisfied. 

Scarcely realizing that his ordeal was over Henry left 
the stand at a sign from his attorney and returned to 
his seat. Had the members of the grand jury recog¬ 
nized the truth? He glanced toward them and saw that 
they were all gazing at the prosecutor and at the same 
instant he became aware that another name had been 


140 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


called, but not by Sterett. This must be in rebuttal, of 
course; his counsel had warned him to expect that, but 
who . . . ? 

Then he saw the detective Stevenson making- his way 
once more to the witness stand and understood. 

“Lieutenant Stevenson, do you recognize this knife ?” 
The district attorney held it up and Stevenson nodded. 

“Yes. It was found on the afternoon of the twentieth 
of last May, in the back yard of Number Three-twenty- 
four A. West Forty-eighth Street, next door to Mrs. 
Horton's. This yard had a square grass plot with shrub¬ 
bery and the knife was lying deep in the soft loam under 
a rose-bush, almost imbedded there." 

“Could some one walking there have dropped it?” 

“No, they couldn’t even have flung it down with force 
enough to make it sink in like that unless they were at 
some height from the ground.” 

“Could it have fallen from a window at the rear of 
Mrs. Horton’s house?” the district attorney asked. 

Stevenson shook his head and replied slowly. 

“No. It would have dropped straight down into the 
yard there, instead of curving out over the fence into 
the next yard.” 

“Did you question the defendant about this knife?” 
Sterett demanded, when the witness was relinquished to 
him. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because it was only brought to me at headquarters 
after court had opened this morning,” Stevenson ex- 


THE GRAND JURY DECIDES 


141 

plained. “I didn’t reach the district attorney with it 
until the noon recess.” 

“Who brought it to you?” 

“The person who found it, Johnny Fay. He’s a thir¬ 
teen-year-old boy who lives with his mother in that 
house. He wanted the knife for himself and hid it, but 
last night his mother found it, saw the initials, and made 
him bring it to me to-day.” 

The detective was excused and the case was in the 
hands of the grand jury at last! 

“My God, what’ll they decide!” Mrs. Horton gripped 
her companion’s arm in a convulsive, vise-like grasp. 
Beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead beneath 
the top-heavy bonnet and she breathed in deep gasps. 
“It ain’t possible they can be such numbskulls as to think 
he did it! Oh, did you see poor Henry’s face as they 
led him away? If—if things should go wrong-!” 

“They won’t,” Mrs. Moffat replied firmly with a 
calmness which she was far from feeling. “Henry Jor¬ 
dan knows it too, don’t you worry! It’s just the strain 
that made him look like that. He knows he’ll be set 
free—you wait and see!” 

In the small room set apart for them, Henry sat with 
his clasped hands hanging between his knees, staring at 
the floor, and deaf to the encouraging words of Lockwood 
Sterett, who paced restlessly before him. The struggle 
was over, the final moment was at hand upon which his 
fate depended, and the sense of unreality returned, the 
strange lethargy encompassed him once more. 

The minutes dragged into ten, twenty, half an hour. 



142 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


He had heard somewhere that it was a disastrous sign 
when the decision was not rendered promptly, and that 
juries who were out for hours, all night perhaps, rarely 
discharged a prisoner! 

An hour! He wished that Sterett would stop saying 
those meaningless things to him, would stop walking 
up and down like that! Perhaps they were going to 
hold him, perhaps only one or two believed in him and 
they would be beaten down by the others, they might be 
weakening now! 

Anything, anything, would be better than this! To 
have the final moment over, to know the worst! Men 
had gone mad under less strain than his! Why didn’t 
they hold him for trial and end this agony? 

And then all at once the moment came! Brisk but 
measured steps along the corridor, the opened door, the 
nodded command and then the courtroom again, the sea 
of faces, the murmur and rustle and stifled exclamations 
that beat like smothering wings upon his consciousness! 

As in a dream he watched the jury file in, and like an 
automaton he obeyed the command to turn and face them. 
From far away he heard the presiding judge voice the 
pregnant query, and then suddenly loud and clear in his 
ears there came the reply: 

“Discharged for lack of evidence!” 


CHAPTER XII 


THE VOW 

D ISCHARGED? Could he have heard aright? 
The vast courtroom whirled around Henry 
Jordan and grew dark, but as he swayed he felt 
a hearty clap on the shoulder and a hand grasped his and 
wrung it vigorously. 

“Good boy! It’s all right!” The voice of his attor¬ 
ney rang in his ears above the congratulatory pande¬ 
monium that reigned about him. “I told you they 
couldn’t help but set you free!—Brace up, Jordan, and 
thank them.” 

The last was added in a low, compelling tone, and 
somehow Henry turned and murmured the words ex¬ 
pected of him in an odd, choking voice that sounded for¬ 
eign to his own ears. Then others crowded around him, 
faces familiar and yet strange as though half-forgotten 
—Mr. Pitt Marlow, Mrs. Horton, Darley, some fellow 
salesmen . . . 

“Get me away!” he murmured hoarsely at last to 
Sterett. “You—you are the one to be thanked, sir, but 
I can’t find words! You’ve given me back my life and 
as long as it is mine I shall be grateful, but I can’t—I’m 
at the end of my rope! Help me to get away!” 

Court was dismissed and somehow Henry found him- 
143 


144 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


self outside, free! Sterett was at his side, shielding him, 
elbowing a way for them both through the massed throng 
in the corridor and the phalanx of reporters, down the 
steps with the fresh, clean summer wind blowing refresh¬ 
ingly over them, to the limousine awaiting their coming. 

As Henry dropped limply on the softly upholstered 
seat, and they rolled swiftly away, the attorney laid a 
hand upon his knee. 

"You heard what Marlow said, my boy? Your job’s 
waiting for you with a substantial raise, but you’re to 
take a three-weeks’ vacation and run away somewhere to 
forget this whole wretched affair. I have a lodge in 
Maine, where you’ll find good fishing, the game laws 
aren’t too rigidly enforced, and you’ll run into a fine lot 
of sturdy backwoodsmen at a logging camp nearby. I’ll 
be glad to start you up there to-morrow and in the mean¬ 
time you’re coming home with me for the night.” 

Henry shook his head. 

"You’re mighty kind.” He choked and after a mo*' 
ment went on: "I can’t tell you how grateful (I am, Mr. 
Sterett; I hope you won’t think I’m not, but right now 
I feel I—I’ve just got to get off by myself somewhere 
in the open, and hike and think things out. About the 
camp, it’s more than good of you, too, but I can’t de¬ 
cide ; I can’t plan yet.” 

"Of course; perfectly natural,” Sterett remarked re¬ 
assuringly. "Let me know to-morrow about that. If 
you’d like to take the car now, Gilbert will drive you any¬ 
where you want to go after he drops me off.” 

"Thanks. I think I’ll take the ferry and get over to 


THE VOW 


145 


the palisades; the park isn’t big enough! I don’t suppose 
you can understand how I feel, sir, but it seems to me that 
it isn’t over, it’s only just begun! The grand jury didn’t 
indict me, because you made them believe that the evi¬ 
dence against me wasn’t strong enough, but the whole 
world isn’t going to look at it that way. They may not 
be actually sure I—I’m guilty, but there’ll always be a 
doubt unless—until the whole truth is known! There’ll 
always be whispers, looks, faces turned away, and I’ll 
walk alone, under a shadow!” 

“Oh, come, Jordan, that’s morbid!” the attorney re¬ 
monstrated. “It’s the reaction, that’s all! You’ve been 
proven innocent, vindicated before the world, and when 
the next big case comes along they’ll forget all about 
you. Nothing is more mercifully short than the public’s 
memory.” 

“It isn’t enough.” Henry shook his head once more. 
“When I heard the evidence, particularly of Mrs. Moffat 
and that nurse, it finally convinced me that Fannie didn’t 
kill herself, she couldn’t! I supposed, of course, that she 
must have, and yet all the time my knowledge of her was 
fighting against it. Folks call suicides cowards, but I 
think it takes bravery of a sort—the sort that wasn’t in 
her! And—and hanging isn’t the kind of death a woman 
would take as a way out, do you think so ?” 

“Not ordinarily,” Sterett conceded. “In my experi¬ 
ences with such cases, in the experience of every one who 
reads the papers, a woman turns to the least violent 
means—poison, for the most part. But we, as well as 
the prosecution, combed the girl’s past and between us 


146 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


we unearthed every one of her associates, during the 
last year or two at any rate, and there seems to have been 
no more motive for her murder than for suicide. You 
can depend upon it, Jordan, whatever mystery there is 
about her death will remain a mystery now. That book 
is closed, and the sooner you follow the example of the 
general public and put it out of your mind, the better 
for you.” 

Henry did not reply, but sat lost in his own thoughts 
until they reached the attorney’s house, where he took 
leave of him and yielded to persuasion to have the chauf¬ 
feur take him at least to the ferry. He dreaded the press 
of humanity about him which a crowded street car would 
have meant, morbidly sensitive lest all the world would 
recognize him from the sketches which had been blazoned 
in the newspapers and cry out his name, denounce him. 
He longed to get away in the fast-falling twilight, out 
under the stars, with only the trees rustling about him 
and the river far below. There he could think, or rather, 
let his crowding thoughts take shape and coherency in 
his mind. 

A ferry-boat was just ready to cast off as he reached 
the slip, and he made his way well forward, leaning over 
the rail just within the gate and turning his shoulder to 
the crowd about him, laborers mostly, for it was still a 
little early for the office workers. No one paid the 
slightest attention to him, and after a few deep breaths 
of the pungent river air he lifted his head and felt the 
blood racing more freely through his veins. 

He was free, and although the thought brought with 


THE VOW 


147 


it a surging wave of devout thankfulness, it was without 
exultation, for he was still bound irrevocably to the past. 
He was master once more of his own actions, but the 
future did not lay clear before him and would not until 
the looming shadows had been finally dispersed. The 
guttural-voiced, roughly-clothed men about him were 
separated from him as by a wall, invisible but impassable, 
and so would all his fellows be while Fannie Gillespie’s 
death remained unsolved. 

When the craft was warped into its slip on the farther 
side he held back until the bulk of the passengers had 
disembarked and then followed, unconsciously imitating 
their purposeful, hurried gait until he was clear of the 
ferry house, and started on foot along the winding road 
ascending the overhanging cliff. It was quite dark now 
and the first stars were glimmering faintly while the wind 
had freshened to a stiff, steady blow. 

He lifted his face gratefully to meet it and trudged on, 
his limbs aching from the unaccustomed effort after his 
confinement, but his brain clearing and tortured nerves 
at rest. 

Fannie Gillespie had not taken her own life! He 
was convinced of this at last, not because of the mere 
suggestion that some one had been watching the house, 
that the gas had so suddenly been extinguished in her 
room, but from a deeper, intuitive sense that seemed 
stronger than knowledge. Suicide was beyond the pos¬ 
sibilities of her nature, even had she cause to wish herself 
out of the world, and nothing could have happened, how¬ 
ever tragic, which would drive her to such an alternative. 


148 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


Some one, from some motive as yet undreamed of, had 
forced an entrance to her room and drawn that rope 
about her neck before she could make an outcry, perhaps 
before she even awoke! Who it was, what the motive, 
and how it had been accomplished remained for Henry 
himself to discover, not alone to clear his own name but 
for the sake of her memory. He had once loved her, he 
had offered her his own life, and although she had re¬ 
fused that offer it was still hers, at her service while a 
duty toward her remained unperformed. 

He left the road and turned down a wooded path that 
ran along the edge of the cliff. Everything was very 
still, as he had hoped, with only the wind sweeping 
through the trees and the pebbles crunching underfoot. 
A solitary policeman glanced at him perfunctorily as he 
passed, but he walked with such a free, swinging stride, 
erect and almost buoyant, that no second thought was 
vouchsafed him. Straight down, over the swaying tops 
of tier after tier of trees, the river lay shining mistily 
where the tiny moving pinpoints of light denoted the 
craft upon its bosom; busy little tugs, clumsy ferries, and 
statelier river steamers, with here and there a long line 
of scows like some sluggish, uncoiled serpent. Muffled 
puffing and snorts, the faint, shrill rebuke or warning 
of a whistle, the deeper, long-drawn-out remonstrance 
of horns and blast of sirens, these came vaguely to his 
ears as from another world. 

A tall tree hung precariously over an outjutting rock, 
its roots clawing beneath it into the empty air above a 
sheer descent of many feet to the next level of swaying 


THE VOW 


149 

tree-tops, and here Henry seated himself, his hat on the 
stone beside him and hands clasped about his knee. 

He found his thoughts going over once more as auto¬ 
matically as a machine, the evidence in the case as it had 
been unfolded at the hearing, and the scene itself rose 
again before him, shutting out the rustling night and 
the quiet stars overhead. He was back in the courtroom, 
facing the judge’s bench and the witness stand, feeling 
the eyes of the jury upon him from one side and the bat¬ 
tery of countless ones from the close-packed spectators, 
whenever he turned his head. 

All at once a face appeared from among them, seem¬ 
ing to stand out apart and alone; a face which, strangely 
enough, he could not actually be sure he had seen. It 
was that of a girl, serious, intent, with smooth, shining 
brown hair, a firm, sweet mouth and deep violet eyes 
which regarded him without question or criticism, in 
perfect understanding and sympathy. (It was just a 
vision, of course, a trick of his overwrought nerves; 
he’d never seen any such girl, certainly not there in the 
courtroom, but it was odd how clearly the face arose 
before him. 

He frowned in puzzled thought and gradually it 
blurred and faded, and Fannie Gillespie appeared in its 
place as he had last seen her, pretty and pert, her round 
blue eyes sparkling and the swift color coming and going 
in her smooth cheeks, paste jewels glittering at her ears 
and throat. How bright and almost startlingly vivid 
her personality had been, how sentient with glowing 
youth and life! It was not the Fannie who had cud- 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


150 

died against him in rare moments of tenderness, naively 
eager for petting and admiration, but the pouting, flout¬ 
ing girl who in her disdain had lost all allure, yet to 
whom now more than ever he owed a solemn duty. 

He had not missed the point of Sterett’s remark in the 
limousine; the mystery would remain a mystery as far 
as any further effort on the part of the authorities might 
be considered. The book was closed with his dismissal, 
the case would be shelved and interest in it die through 
sheer inanition, while the stigma of suicide or more grim 
suggestion of murder would cling to her name as long as 
it was remembered. 

This would not be of lengthy duration, for she had 
been merely one of the army of young working women 
of no social position or importance, one whose only claim 
upon public interest had been the manner of her taking 
off. There was all the more need for him to work quickly 
if her name were to be cleared and he vowed that it 
should be. Alone on the heights, between the mighty 
river and the stars which seemed so near, Henry took a 
solemn oath that he would find the man whose hands 
had tightened that rope about her throat. No scandal, 
sordid or opprobrious, could be connected with her mem¬ 
ory; no fear of that entered his thoughts, but he knew 
the suggestion of its possibility would linger in the minds 
of the vast horde of outsiders until the truth were re¬ 
vealed. 

He had three weeks of leisure before the treadmill 
should claim him again; three weeks in which to find this 
unknown man! There could be no long, somnolent days 


THE VOW 


151 

in the Maine woods to heal his harassed spirit, no solitude 
in which to hide his sensitive wounds; he must plunge 
straight into the thick of things, back into the old exist¬ 
ence where every turn would be a reminder to others as 
well as himself. He must run the daily, hourly gauntlet 
of eyes and thoughts and tongues, but though he shrank 
indescribably from it, no thought of shirking came to 
him. He had pledged himself to the cause of this girl 
who would have none of him in life, and at all costs he 
meant to carry on. 

Curiously enough, no apprehension of failure assailed 
him. With no slightest idea of how he was to set about 
his self-imposed task, no clue to guide him but a lurking 
shadow among deeper shadows, Henry meant to start 
upon his search there where the crime had actually been 
consummated. There must be some indication, even after 
all these weeks, which the police, in their zeal to convict 
him, had overlooked; some incident, trifling in all but 
its significance, of her last days that would point perhaps 
to a motive never considered, a murderer who must be¬ 
lieve himself secure from suspicion now and forever. 

Henry had had no experience, no knowledge of per¬ 
sonal investigation save that which had been directed 
against himself, and criminal cases as recorded in the 
newspapers had held no interest for him heretofore. He 
could plan no mode of procedure, lay down no rules, 
decide upon no definite course. Luck, chance, fate— 
upon these alone he must rely, but the unbending will to 
succeed brought with it a sense of strength and power, 
and faith, sure and confident, upheld him as he rose at 


152 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


last. He would find the murderer of Fannie Gillespie 
and hand him over to the justice which nodded now! 

In the spacious library of his home, Judge Carberry 
smoked reflectively before the empty hearth. It was late 
and the rest of the household had long since retired, but 
he could not compose himself to sleep. Long years on 
the bench had not inured him to the strain of indictments 
for murder in the first degree, and whenever youth ap¬ 
peared before him, however hotheaded and misguided, 
and the possibility that he would be called upon to pro¬ 
nounce the words which would ultimately cut it down, 
blot it from existence, hung over him, it weighed upon 
his spirit with a dread which would never have been 
guessed from his sternly implacable expression. 

He thanked whatever gods were his that he had not 
been compelled to hold the prisoner for trial to-day. 
The young man with boyishly curling hair and earnest, 
candid eyes who had told his story with such straight¬ 
forward conscientiousness was innocent, if ever he had 
beheld innocence, and the relief with which he had set 
him free brought the reaction of nervous exhaustion now 
that banished sleep even as it cloaked him with peace. 

His musing was interrupted by the whirring summons 
of the doorbell and he rose with a questioning glance at 
the clock. Who could the visitor be at such an hour? 
Some one must have an urgent message to deliver and 
the old butler was asleep far at the top of the house. 
Gathering his dressing-gown about his long frame, Judge 
Carberry shuffled out into the hall and opened the door. 

A young man stood there, hat in hand, and as the light 


THE VOW 


153 

from the lamp on the newel post of the staircase shone 
upon his face the judge recognized Henry Jordan. 

“Come in/’ he invited quietly as he held the door wide. 
“You wished to see me?” 

“Yes, sir.” Henry advanced, but not beyond the glow 
of the lamp, and his host sew that already the strained, 
hunted look had left his eyes but his expression was reso¬ 
lute and grim. “I must ask you to forgive my coming 
here, and so late, but I wanted to make sure that you 
would not forget me. Judge Carberry, please look at me 
well and remember me, for some day I shall appear before 
you again!” 

“You?” The judge gazed at him in utter amazement. 
Surely the lad must be distraught, his mind temporarily 
unhinged by the ordeal through which he had passed! 
“You were discharged to-day. You are free, young 
man!” 

“I do not mean that I shall be arraigned.” A slight 
smile twisted his set lips and then they straightened once 
more in a line of rigorous determination. “When next 
/I appear before you, Judge Carberry, it will not be as a 
prisoner, an accused man! That is why I ask you to 
look at me and remember me well, for I shall come as a 
witness; a witness against the real murderer of Fannie 
Gillespie!” 


CHAPTER XIII 


HOMECOMING 

DON’T know if he understood!” Mrs. Horton ex- 
I claimed for the hundredth time as she aimlessly- 
rearranged the bisque atrocities on her parlor 
mantel. “I told him plain enough, the Lord knows, 
when I went up and shook his hand, but he didn’t seem 
to even hear! It’s real good of you to sit up and keep 
me company, Marian, but like as not I’ll be up till 
morning!” 

Miss Gray, who had become just “Marian” now, smiled 
tranquilly as she raised her eyes to the anxious landlady. 

“I don’t mind,” she responded. “I’ll run away, of 
course, as soon as Mr. Jordan rings. Perhaps he didn’t 
understand you, but he will surely come!” 

“I’m not so sure,” Mrs. Horton shook her head dole¬ 
fully. “I ought to have taken hold of him right there 
in the courtroom, but that lawyer whisked him away 
before I could ca’m down enough to think! I telephoned 
him and he said Henry wasn’t there, he’d left him to go 
and take a long walk by himself. Piece of foolishness, 
I call it! That boy oughtn’t to be alone right now, think¬ 
ing over his troubles that are past and gone; home’s the 
place for him and this is the only one he’s got. If you 
could have seen him—?” 


i54 


HOMECOMING 


155 

She paused expressively and after a moment Marian 
said: 

“I did. I was there to-day, in the back of the court¬ 
room.” 

“You?” Mrs. Horton stared. “Why didn't you come 
with Mis' Moffat and me? I'd have asked you if I 
thought you were interested.” 

“I was, but I hadn’t any real intention of going until 
the last minute. Something drew me, I don’t know 
what it was; I couldn’t seem to think of anything else.” 
The girl flushed slightly. “It wasn’t just idle curiosity, 
Mrs. Horton, but I don’t feel exactly like an outsider; 
living here with you where it all happened made it seem 
close to me and I have been interested in the case from 
the start, but I was afraid you would think it an intru¬ 
sion. I—I wanted to see what Mr. Jordan was like, and 
how the hearing would turn out.” 

“It turned out the only way it could have, thank 
heavens, but I did have some mighty scary times, 
especially yesterday. Now you’ve seen Henry, what do 
you think of him? You’re a stranger to him yet, 
Marian, and you ain’t prejudiced one way or the other. 
Looking at him as he stood there to-day facing the grand 
jury, and hearing and reading what you have about the 
whole thing, no matter what the finding was, would you 
think he was guilty? Do you think he could ever in 
this world commit murder?” 

“No.” Marion spoke with quiet, sure conviction. 
“One glimpse of his face would have told me that, I think, 
whatever the evidence might have been, or even the 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


156 

grand jury’s finding. No one could doubt his inno¬ 
cence !” 

“You dear child!” Mrs. Horton took both her hands 
and beamed upon her. “You and him are going to be 
friends, I can see that, and he’ll need friends now, new 
ones that’ll kind of take him away from the past. That’s 
what worries me to-night, for under all that quietness of 
his he’s terrible proud and sensitive, and maybe he feels 
that he just can’t bring himself to come back here, with 
all of us knowing how much he used to think of her and 
seeing him go through all he told about on the stand 
this afternoon. He may imagine that some of us doubt 
him, even now, but we never did! I’ve been saying 
just what you do from the time that bull-headed detective 
took him away, but nobody can depend on juries. It’s a 
comfort that you, who don’t even know him, couldn’t 
help but see the truth!” 

Marian turned suddenly. 

“Somebody is coming up the steps!” she declared 
under her breath. “Can’t you hear them? Whoever it 
is, they are coming very slowly as though they were tired 
out. Is everybody-?” 

“Everybody else is in, long ago!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Horton excitedly. “It’s him, at last.—Don’t you go, 
Marian; I want you to meet him right away! It’ll make 
it lots easier for him and he’ll be heartened up to know 
how you felt, soon as you looked at him!” 

“Oh, no!” the girl protested, warm color flooding her 
cheeks again. “I couldn’t—he mustn’t know, and be¬ 
sides he will want to be alone! Good-night!” 



HOMECOMING 


157 


She was at the foot of the stairs, but the landlady had 
waddled hurriedly after her and laid a hand upon her 
arm. 

“HI take it as a favor if you’ll wait, Marian! You’ll 
know how to talk to him and make him feel at home 
again while I’m fixing up a little bite of supper just for 
the three of us—There!” 

The bell had rung, a mere tentative touch as though 
the newcomer were not sure of his welcome, and Marian 
paused irresolute as Mrs. Horton hastened to the door 
and flung it wide. 

“I declare, Henry, this is the latest you’ve ever come 
home, and I—I’ve been waiting for you a good while!” 
The motherly voice with its brave assumption of cheer 
trembled suspiciously. “Your room’s ready, I’ve kept 
it so right along!” 

“Dear Mrs. Horton!” He wrung both her hands, and 
the listening girl could hear an answering tremor in his 
quiet, low tones. “I might have known and yet-!” 

Words failed him and the landlady drew him in and 
shut the door. 

“Where’ve you been?” she demanded. “When did 
you eat last?” 

“I—I don’t know. It doesn’t matter!” He drew his 
hand across his eyes and then caught sight of the girl on 
the stairs. For a moment he stared at her unbelievingly 
and she regarded him in return with a steady, friendly 
gaze, unconscious of any embarrassment. 

“Henry, I want to make you acquainted with Miss 
Marian Gray.” Mrs. Horton had followed the direc- 



BRIGHT LIGHTS 


158 

tion of his glance and proceeded to do the honors with 
alacrity. “Marian, this is Mr. Jordan that we’ve been 
talking about. She was there in court to-day, Henry, 
and she says that one look at your face would have told 
anybody you couldn’t have done it, no matter what the 
evidence was, or whether you were held or not! There 
couldn’t anybody have doubted you!” 

“You said that?” Henry advanced and held out his 
hand. “I hope some time you will let me thank you; I 
can’t seem to find words to-night. I knew you were 
there, I saw you, and I guess I knew, too, that you sort 
of believed in me.” 

“I did,” she murmured as she withdrew her hand 
from his. “You’ve nothing to thank me for, Mr. Jordan; 
nobody could think anything else, and we don’t need to 
talk about it.” 

“You two go and set in the parlor for a minute while 
1 fix us a bite,” Mrs. Horton directed. “I’ll bet you 
didn’t have any dinner or lunch either, Henry, and a 
hot cup of coffee’ll do you good. It’ll perk in two 
shakes!” 

Cutting short his protestations she turned to the back 
stairs and Marian led the way to the parlor, seized by 
a panicky embarrassment at the room’s determined 
formality. 

“I came two weeks ago.” Without thought she stam¬ 
mered out the first words which entered her mind, any¬ 
thing to break the silence which had fallen between them 
with the landlady’s departure. “I’m from up in New 
England, you know, and this is my first summer in the 


HOMECOMING 159 

city. I suppose you—you’ve been here a long time, 
Mr. Jordan?” 

“Since I was just a little fellow. My folks died and 
my aunt came up back in Pennsylvania and got me, but 
then she died, too, and I scratched along alone.” He 
was scarcely conscious of what he said. The girl with 
the firm, sweet mouth and eyes like April violets! The 
girl whose face he had seen and remembered even when 
he was sure it was only a trick of his overwrought mind! 
There was such a girl, after all, she was here! Abruptly 
he added: “It’s funny, my seeing you to-day in all that 
crowd! I thought of you again after it was all over, 
the way you had looked at me, but I wasn’t sure you’d 
actually been there! I thought perhaps I had imagined 
it!” 

There was no mistaking his nai've honesty and Marian 
laughed softly, a rippling little laugh which held no note 
of self-consciousness. Then her face grew serious. 

“How did you think I looked at you?” she asked. 

“Just sort of friendly and understanding.” Henry 
seemed to grope for a means of expressing his thought. 
“It was almost as if you spoke to me and gave me your 
hand, and it lent me confidence, somehow, when I’d about 
done thinking or caring. I can’t tell you how much it 
meant to me!” 

“I’m glad,” Marian observed simply. “I remember 
I was thinking I would like to do just that; give you 
my hand and tell you how certain I was that everything 
would come out all right. It’s nice to know you felt 
that, even if you didn’t believe I was real!” 


i6o 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“I guess I did,” he said slowly and thoughtfully. “I 
couldn’t be certain because my mind was sort of hazy 
and dull, and I didn’t altogether trust it, but I guess I 
knew all the time that you were really there and some¬ 
time I’d see you again. I didn’t know it was to be so 
soon, though; I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you 
standing on the stairs out there just now!” 

“I—I was going up to my room.” Marian’s glance fell 
and a wave of shyness swept over her. “I had stopped 
to talk to Mrs. Horton and it was later than I thought. 
She said she was going to wait up for you till morning 
and I think if you hadn’t come by then she would have 
gone out to look for you!” 

Why should she feel so silly and conscious because this 
young man who had suffered so much and so terribly 
spoke right straight out from his thoughts without try¬ 
ing to hide them or realizing how personal they sounded ? 
She was provoked and ashamed. He would be the last 
to say pretty, insincere things, Marian knew, even if he 
were not utterly weary and disillusioned, broken with the 
torture through which he had passed, and grateful for 
a stranger’s friendliness. 

“Mrs. Horton’s a wonder!” he said warmly. “She 
mothers all of us and I don’t believe we half appreciate 
it till we—we’re away for a while. Lockwood Sterett, 
my attorney, asked me to stay at his house to-night, but 
though I couldn’t do that, I didn’t mean to come back 
here and impose on her goodness. I couldn’t make up 
my mind to go anywhere else, somehow.” 

“Of course not! You would have offended her dread- 


HOMECOMING 


161 


fully if you had, for she feels that this is your home.” 
Marian paused and then ventured: “Shall you go back 
to business right away?” 

“No. I’ve a few weeks' vacation and Sterett offered 
me his fishing camp up in Maine, but I think I'll just 
hang around and get used to things again, fall back into 
my old groove,” he replied. He was not ready yet to 
take any one into his confidence concerning his purpose, 
but as he spoke it flamed again in his thoughts. He had 
made a vow, assumed a trust, and he would not rest until 
it was fulfilled. Fannie Gillespie’s murderer must be 
found! Instinctively he turned the conversation away 
from himself and his own immediate future. “You’ve 
just come to New York, Miss Gray? Are you studying 
something here ?” 

“Only the disposition of my employer!” Marian 
smiled again and sensing the sudden reserve in his man¬ 
ner, she launched out into a description of her secre¬ 
tarial work and the people with whom she came in 
contact, seeking to divert his thoughts. She was re¬ 
warded by an awakened light of interest in his tired 
eyes, and then Mrs. Horton summoned them to the 
dining-room where she had laid a cozy little side-table 
for three. 

“Fried oysters, first of the season!” she announced. 
“I saved 'em out when Caroline made the stew to-night 
and they ought to go good with some of these pickles I 
put up last week. I got the coffee good and strong the 
way you like it, Henry.” 

Murmuring an appreciation the young man seated 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


162 

himself and glanced around the homely, familiar room in 
a sudden daze. There was the old-fashioned leaden 
castor with one leg bent, canting perilously in the center 
of the long table, the “still life’ , of defunct duck hang¬ 
ing a bit crookedly on the wall, the imitation filet cur¬ 
tain at the window, freshly laundered, but with its woven 
warrior capering a trifle more eccentrically from a new 
darn which threw him completely from his equilibrium— 
had only a few hours passed, or years, since he had seen 
them last? Henry’s hand closed mechanically over the 
bone napkin ring with his initials scratched on it that 
Mrs. Horton had presented to him long ago, and he 
choked. 

But the hospitable landlady was bustling about serving 
them and chattering volubly to Marian Gray, and neither 
appeared to notice his momentary emotion. Not until 
she poured his second cup of coffee did Mrs. Horton 
address him directly and then it was with an artfully 
casual request. 

“Henry, soon as you can get ’round to it, I wish you’d 
fix a new lock on the front door for me. I had a man 
in from the avenue to change it Monday and he give us 
all bright, new keys, and now nobody can work it; Agnes’ 
legs are run off letting ’em in.” 

“I’ll do it first thing in the morning,” he promised. 
Then a quick flash of memory came to him, and he asked: 
“Have any other locks in the house been changed or re¬ 
paired ?” 

“Not a one, except—except on the top floor,” Mrs. 
Horton confessed. “I put it off till fall cleaning.” 


HOMECOMING 


163 


“Then IT1 go all over them to-morrow,” Henry sighed 
with relief. “It will sort of get my hand in again. I 
was telling Miss Gray that I have quite a vacation, but 
I’d rather putter around the house than go away, except 
perhaps for a short trip.” 

“That’s fine!” Mrs. Horton beamed. “Mr. Darley’s 
kind of lost ambition since he fell on the flat of his back 
at his gymnasium trying to chin himself, and it’ll be 
real handy to have you ’round. Where was you thinking 
of going on a short trip?” 

“I hadn’t decided,” Henry temporized. In truth, 
the idea was born of that moment and still vague 
in his mind, but perhaps it would be a starting 
point. . . . “Have you been away at all this sum¬ 
mer?” 

“Marian and me went down to one of the beaches 
on Sunday, but she didn’t like the crowds, and noise, and 
dirt, and neither did I! I told her we’d take our lunch 
some day and go out in the real country where it’s pleas¬ 
ant and quiet, but we never did.” 

“Will you let me take you both?” Henry felt surprised 
at his own eagerness, as he glanced at the girl. “I know 
a splendid place with a wide, rushing brook and big trees; 
the average motorist seldom finds it and you wouldn’t 
dream how near the city it is.” 

Marian’s eyes were a bluish violet, he discovered, as 
she lifted them to his in thanking him; almost the blue 
of that patch of sky he used to watch through the bars 
of his cell window, and her lips weren’t as firm and un¬ 
yielding as he had thought. Beneath his unconsciously 


164 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


fixed scrutiny she flushed all at once and he saw how 
young- she was; somehow he'd taken it for granted that 
she must be older, she was so quiet and seemed to under¬ 
stand things, falling into a fellow's mood without try¬ 
ing to drag him into hers. Maybe she'd see how he felt 
about what he had to do if he could bring himself to tell 
her, sometime. 

The trio cleared the table and washed dishes together 
in the big, roomy kitchen and afterward, when Henry 
found himself once more in his own old room, he turned 
out the light and drew the shabby Morris chair to the 
open window for a final cigarette. 

To-morrow he would examine all the locks; to-morrow 
he would start the task he had set for himself. It 
mightn't be a bad plan to take that trip, after all, if he 
couldn’t get a line on anything here; Fannie hadn’t been 
in the city so very long.—It was strange that they both 
had brown hair and blue eyes, but Fannie's hair had been 
frizzed and this other girl’s was as smooth and glossy as 
a bird's wing; Fannie’s eyes had been round and china- 
blue, and Marian’s. . . . But what was he thinking? 
Girls would never have any part in his life, any more. 
He would be a marked man even when this shadow of 
hideous doubt was lifted from him and the truth was 
known. He owed it to Fannie, and the love he had once 
given to the girl he thought she was, to solve the mystery 
of her death and after that—well, there was his work, of 
course. 

He was pretty tired; he hadn’t realized it before. 


HOMECOMING 


165 

Older, too; a fellow couldn’t go through what he had and 
ever come back. He watched the tiny spark of his cigar¬ 
ette as it curved outward and down into the yard, and 
then stumbled to his bed. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE COMPACT 

T HE mood of deep dejection had lightened with 
the morning and when Henry summoned his self- 
control and descended to the dining-room the re¬ 
ception he received from 1 Simeon Darley, Myrtle Harris, 
and even the comparative stranger, Edgar North, was 
balm to his sensitive spirit and removed the last trace of 
his agonizing self-consciousness. 

Agnes, more angular and untidy than ever, favored 
him with an unprecedented grin as she placed his straw¬ 
berries before him, and when Mrs. Moffat appeared she 
dropped her hand lightly on his shoulder as he would 
have risen. 

“This is splendid!” she said in a hearty, low tone. 
“There’s a new picture I’m dying to see soon; will my 
age protect me from an imputation of brazenness if I 
ask you to take me?” 

“Whenever you please!” he responded. “I—I can’t 
thank you for yesterday; Mr. Sterett told me how you 
went to him-!” 

“I had to make myself important, too!” Mrs. Moffat 
smiled. “Trust a woman for. getting in a word some¬ 
where !” 

She moved around the table and seated herself de- 
166 



THE COMPACT 


167 


liberately in the empty chair which Fannie Gillespie had 
occupied, darting a swift, meaning glance at Mrs. 
Horton’s dumbfounded face. That lady recovered her¬ 
self quickly, however, and gestured vigorously beyond 
Henry’s bent head for the gaping Agnes to change the 
service from Mrs. Moffat’s old place. 

Henry did not note the byplay; the shock of beholding 
the buyer from Ohio there in Fannie’s chair was for a 
moment overwhelming and he bowed his head as he 
fumbled for the berries with his spoon. But no one paid 
any attention to him and when under cover of the pro¬ 
saic, everyday chatter going on about the table, he raised 
his eyes again, only those of Marian Gray met them. 
Hers were warm with sympathy, but she smiled brightly 
and he found himself replying in kind. 

The meal concluded, he selected some tools from the 
long unused box upon the shelf containing the imple¬ 
ments for his experiments, and, first making good his 
promise to adjust the lock on the front door properly, he 
went on up through the house. When at last he reached 
the top floor he paused before the door of Fannie’s room. 
The burst lock had been repaired, and the same key was 
again inserted in it. 

He took it out and examined it again beneath the sky¬ 
light, as he had on the day the murder was discovered. 
Then replacing it in the lock he essayed several experi¬ 
ments with one and another of the small tools he carried. 
Satisfied, he glanced down cautiously over the stair-rail 
into the empty hall below, turned back to the door, and 
thrusting it determinedly open, he entered. 


168 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


It was evident that Mrs. Horton had neglected here 
to follow her usual custom of trailing along in Agnes’ 
wake to be assured that her work was done thoroughly, 
for a thick coating of dust lay over everything. Henry 
had never been in the little room before except once, 
when he followed Officer Burke to find the slender body 
swinging from the towering bedpost, and now the thought 
turned him sick and faint, but he forced it resolutely 
from him and holding his breath in the stifling, musty 
air he strode to the window and flung it wide, the dust 
rising in little clouds at every step. 

The high, narrow bed, stripped bare, had been covered 
with a muslin casing, but only a gray, powdery film lay 
over the dresser and wash-stand, and the two chairs were 
set stiffly back against the wall. The drawers and closet 
contained not so much as the merest scrap of dress fabric 
or paper, and even the carpet had been taken up and rolled 
in a comer, while any marks which must have been dis¬ 
cernible on the windowsill, if the detective Stevenson 
had spoken truly during that momentous interview, had 
vanished now. 

Henry glanced out at the house directly in the rear. 
It was from that window just below the level on which 
he stood that the nurse Evelyn Trimble had seen the light 
go out so suddenly. What could it mean? 

No wiser than when he had entered, he left the room 
at last, closing the door behind him, and descended to the 
next floor, to find North standing in the doorway of 
his own front hallroom. 

“I didn’t want to speak before your old friends, Mr. 


THE COMPACT 


169 


Jordan, but I want you-all to know how mighty glad 
I am!” he said earnestly as he extended his hand. “I 
told Mrs. Horton all the time that though I didn’t know 
ve’y much about no’thern co’ts I was right certain a 
grave mistake had been made.” 

“Thanks.” Henry shook hands heartily. He had 
liked the newcomer from their first meeting and his cor¬ 
dial good fellowship met with a ready response. “I’m 
fortunate in my friends! Every one’s been just bully 
all the way through!” 

“Why wouldn’t they?” North smiled, and then his 
face grew grave. “'I’ve got a day off from bond-selling 
and Mrs. Horton tells me you’re on a vacation. I’d be 
ve’y happy to have you lunch with me at a little place I’ve 
found run by a real N’Orleans cook. It’s just a wooden 
shack away up on the river-front near some boathouses, 
but he sure does fix crabs like our crawfish down home. 
There’s something I’d like to talk over with you, if you 
will permit me.” 

“Why, thanks!” Henry repeated. “I’ll be glad to! 
I’m doing a bit of tinkering ’round the house now for 
Mrs. Horton, but I’ll be through by noon.” 

“We’ll say half-past twelve, then?” North nodded. 
“Bring a coat, for it’ll be right cool up there.” 

As he went on downstairs, bound for the basement, 
Henry wondered what the other could have to talk over 
with him. His tone had suggested that it was a semi- 
confidential matter, but North hardly knew him. What 
could he think that they had in common? 

He had no time to puzzle about it, however, for Mrs. 


170 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


Moffat had paused in the main entrance hall on hearing 
his step and a swift impulse came to him. 

“Are you in a hurry?” He saw that she was dressed 
for the street, but she shook her head. 

“Just a little personal shopping, for once!” she replied. 
“Did you want to speak to me? Let's go in the par¬ 
lor.” 

She led the way and he followed, at a loss how to 
begin but eager to learn what he might. 

Mrs. Moffat, however, paved the way for him. 

“Was it about my testimony yesterday ?” she asked. 

“Yes,” Henry hesitated. “I know it's all over and 
done with and I don't want to go around boring people, 
but naturally I can't put it out of my mind just yet and 
I'm curious to know more about that man you saw over 
in the areaway that night.” 

She shook her head. 

“I’m dreadfully sorry, but I don’t know any more than 
I told.” Her tone was frankly regretful. “I wish I'd 
looked out earlier, then we’d have known whether he 
was there before Fannie got back from that dance or 
not. When I talked with her after her quarrel with that 
fellow Ward and saw that she was afraid of him, I 
thought it might have been he that first night; that he'd 
followed her home from the dance. But unless he was 
waiting his chance to break into the house and do her 
harm-?” 

“I don’t think so,” Henry said slowly. “I believed 
what he said yesterday; you heard him, Mrs. Moffat. 
He was hard hit and he’s got a pretty fierce temper, I 



THE COMPACT 


1 71 

guess, but I don’t think he’d take it out on a girl. It 
must have been somebody else you saw.” 

“I’ve come to that conclusion, too,” Mrs. Moffat re¬ 
marked. “It couldn’t have been the actor who was with 
her—at least he hadn’t anything to do with what hap¬ 
pened afterward, for then he was half unconscious, by 
all accounts, from Ward’s attack on him. There’s the 
other one, of course, the man from the amusement park.” 

“Newell? He seemed to be just a friend. Did—did 
Fannie speak of him to you?” asked Henry quickly. 

“She just said that a friend of hers had a concession 
at Knickerbocker Beach.” Mrs. Moffat dismissed him 
with a shrug and added: “Mr. Jordan, if it wasn’t this 
Frank Ward of whom Fannie was afraid, who was it? 
There must have been some one we don’t know about. 
Perhaps you didn’t notice how nervously she acted in the 
dining-room and how she kept glancing at the window as 
though she expected somebody to break through it, but 
I did, and so did Mrs. Horton.” 

“I know. There didn’t seem to be anything different 
in her manner that I can remember except that she was 
more lively and full of spirits than before, but I—well, 
you know how it was with us; I didn’t talk to her any 
more than just to be polite and she never even looked at 
me.—There isn’t anything you can tell me, then?” Un¬ 
disguised disappointment sounded in his tone. “I thought 
she might have said something else that would give us ai 
clue, if you could recall it.” 

“Not a thing.” Mrs. Moffat eyed him shrewdly. 
“After all, there isn’t much to make any one think it 


172 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


was a case of murder, Mr. Jordan. As for the man I 
saw across the street, he could have been on quite inno¬ 
cent business, or watching for some one from another 
house. We’ve really as much reason to believe she killed 
herself, for we don’t know the motive in either case, 
and I think we’ll find that is what the police will decide. 
Of course, you can’t put it out of your thoughts, but it 
won’t do any good to brood over it, and you’ve got the 
future to think of.” 

That was practically what Sterett had said, Henry re¬ 
flected as he went with her to the door and then pro¬ 
ceeded to the basement. The authorities had shot their 
bolt and the motive for either murder or suicide was 
buried in a maddening oblivion. 

If only Fannie could speak! She, who had chattered 
so freely of everything that came into her head, who 
never appeared to have a secret she wouldn’t willingly 
have shared with any one who cared to listen, whose life 
was made up of little, inconsequent things, as superficial 
and ephemerally bright as the paste jewelry she had 
loved—the thought of mystery in connection with her 
seemed incredible! 

Yet it was there! If, after all, his instinct was at 
fault and she had somehow found courage to take that 
mad, desperate step of her own volition, there must 
have been some cause, and that cause remained to be 
discovered. 

At half-past twelve North knocked on his door to 
find him lost in a moody abstraction, his room filled with 
the smoke of innumerable cigarettes. He seemed glad 


THE COMPACT 


173 


of the interruption, however, and the young Southerner 
exerted himself, while tactfully ignoring his guest’s de¬ 
pression, to exorcise it by an account of his activities in 
the bond market. He talked wittily and well, in his 
soft, liquid drawl, with a quiet humor which Henry 
found irresistible in spite of himself, and by the time 
they emerged from the subway far uptown the blue devils 
were temporarily banished. 

The little shack beyond the railroad tracks at the foot 
of a steep hill glistened whitely in a new coat of paint, 
with an awninged platform built out over the water and 
the rollers from a passing steamer lapping pleasantly 
underneath. Launches were moored here and theie, and 
canoes tied to small docks on either hand, while joyous 
shouts came from behind a beached scow where a crowd 
of urchins were bathing. 

Well as he knew the out-of-the-way spots of the city, 
it was a novel environment for Henry and he relaxed 
under its influence. The crabs were incomparably good, 
the smiling negro host a quaintly amusing character, and 
North an entertaining companion. 

The latter had said there was something he would like 
to discuss, but not until the meal was concluded and 
cigarettes curled fragrant smoke into the air did he 
broach the subject. Then, gazing thoughtfully out over 
the broad, dancing river, he observed: 

“Fve heard No’therners say we hold life cheap down 
where I come from because an insult that only brings 
hot words up here means a hurry call for the undertaker 
there, but I reckon we’ve got a different code, that’s all. 


i /4 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


I wanted to ask you-all something, Mr. Jordan, and then 
I won’t refer to a painful subject again.” 

“Ask away, North, but don’t 'Mr/ me!” Henry 
smiled. “You’ve proved a good pal, and if you want to 
know anything about the trial, it’s all right; I’ve gotten 
over being sensitive.” 

“It goes back further than that.” North’s dark eyes 
fell to the glowing tip of his cigarette for a moment and 
then he lifted them frankly to his guest. “Do you-all 
remember a little talk we had together in your room the 
mo’ning Miss Gillespie was found dead? Mr. Darley 
was there, too, and you said you meant to find out who 
it was brought on her whatever trouble she was in and 
make them pay. Of co’se there wasn’t any suspicion 
then but that it was suicide. Mr. Darley announced he 
was with you-all in anything you were going to do, and 
though I was a stranger to you I offered to help. Then 
the police made that miserable blunder and ev’ything 
was changed. When her brother appeared I figured 
there’d be some action, but I reckon he’s mighty close 
to being what we call white trash down home! Now 
that it’s been proved you-all have got clean hands, I 
wanted to ask if your intentions are still what they were 
that day, or if you’ve concluded to let the past just bury 
itself.” 

“Not by a long shot!” He drew a deep breath. “I 
didn’t mean to speak of it to any one, but that’s why I’m 
sticking around instead of taking a real vacation. I 
can’t believe Fannie killed herself, now that I’ve had 
time to think about it, but if she did I’m more determined 


THE COMPACT 


175 


than ever to find out why, and what sudden trouble 
drove her to her death! I won’t rest till I’ve discovered 
the truth!” 

“That’s what I had hoped!” North nodded and a 
slight flush mounted in the clear olive of his cheeks. 
“It’s the way I have felt about it from the beginning, 
for as I told you-all I was raised to look on ev’y good 
woman as one whom it was a duty and a privilege to 
protect. I wanted to help you-all, too, but I couldn’t 
figure out a way, for I was unacquainted with Miss 
Gillespie’s affairs. However, I stand where I did that 
mo’ning and I’ll be mighty happy if you-all will count 
me in with you! You called me a pal, Henry; will you 
’low me to be one now?” 

He extended his hand once more and Henry grasped 
it impulsively. 

“You bet I will! I thought I’d go at this thing alone, 
but it’ll be a lot better to have some one to talk it over 
with, and I shouldn’t wonder if you helped tremendously, 
more than we dream of now! A stranger’s point of 
view is a good thing sometimes, and you’ve proved your¬ 
self! We’ll work together; it’s a compact!” 

North’s white teeth flashed in an appreciative smile 
and then he flushed. 

“Henry, I don’t want you to take this amiss, but it’s a 
partnership now and I feel I must do my share in eve y 
way. Mighty few real So’therners have had any money 
for two or three generations and 'I never can seem to 
keep what I do make, but there’s always a way of doing 
things in a good cause.” Pie hesitated and pulled a small 


176 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


leather wallet from his pocket, opening the thin bill-fold 
compartment. “Don’t object to my saying so, but I 
must be a mite better fixed right now than you, though 
it isn’t talking big, by any means, and I want to help de¬ 
fray the expenses of our search—Good Lord !” 

He uttered the sharp exclamation in an almost horri¬ 
fied tone and reached convulsively for the small oblong 
of paper which had slipped from the wallet and fluttered 
to the floor. 

Henry could see only that there was heavy printing 
upon it with some handwriting below and figures added, 
and he shrugged and smiled as it was shamefacedly re¬ 
trieved. A pawnticket! Who of his associates hadn’t 
been reduced to such an expediency at some time or 
another? Realizing the almost fierce pride of his com¬ 
panion, however, he ignored the incident and exclaimed 
hastily: 

“Couldn’t think of it, North, but thanks just the 
same! I’m prepared to meet any expenses that may 
crop up, and I don’t think they’ll be heavy. Don’t insist, 
old man; I appreciate it, but it’s impossible/’ 

North eyed him sharply as though in dread lest the 
other had noted the slip of paper and recognized it for 
what it was, but Henry returned his gaze steadily, and 
his agitation diminished. He returned the wallet to 
his pocket with a nod, and after a little pause asked: 
“Where do we start? I didn’t ’tend the co’t case be¬ 
cause it would have looked like plain curiosity, but I 
read ev’y word of the evidence in the papers and I reckon 
I know just how matters stood with you-all, so I won’t 


THE COMPACT 


177 

ask anything you don’t want to tell me, but what do we 
do first?” 

“I don’t know!” Henry responded ruefully. “I went 
over every inch of that room this morning, though I 
suppose it was foolish to hope for a clue there after all 
this time, and I tried to sound Mrs. Moffat, to find out 
if she had seen or learned anything more definite than 
she told on the stand yesterday. She hadn’t, though, 
and the best she could do was to advise me not to brood 
over it. That was what Sterett said, too, only in dif¬ 
ferent words; he predicted that the police would shelve 
it and the truth never come out. I haven’t a ghost of 
an idea, except one; it’s only a forlorn hope, I’m afraid, 
but if I can’t dig up anything here I’ve about made up 
my mind to have a shot at it. There’s just one person 
who might know or suspect something, but be keeping 
quiet about it because of small-town dread of gossip, and 
that is that brother of hers; I thought of beating it to 
Bison and having it out with him.” 

“My Lord! That’s a splendid notion!” North’s eyes 
sparkled. “I suspected that he might have told some¬ 
thing and that was why he kept away from the co’t! It 
stands to reason we’re mo’ likely to find the cause for 
whatever did happen right there where she was raised. 
Do you want me to come along?” 

“No.” Henry shook his head. “It’s just a chance, 
but I think I’ll run up alone to-night and not waste any 
more time here. You keep your eyes open, though, and 
when I get back we’ll take a fresh start. You know 
how I feel about Fannie, I guess; it was all over long 


i ;8 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


before she died, but I owe it to her memory to clear up 
this mystery and I’ll do it if hell freezes! I can’t tell 
you how glad I am to have you in on this with me!” 

They talked until the sun was low and a light summer 
breeze again heralded the coming night and, although the 
conference brought no further light to bear on their task, 
it strengthened the mutual liking into friendship. They 
were allies, partners in a solemn compact to solve the 
mystery of Fannie Gillespie’s death, and Henry felt more 
than ever confident. Somehow, the truth would be re¬ 
vealed ! 


CHAPTER XV 


LIGHT IN DARKNESS 

E VADING the amazed protestations of Mrs. Hor¬ 
ton, Henry telephoned to Lockwood Sterett, de¬ 
clining the offer of his camp, and then hastily 
threw a change of apparel into a small bag and caught 
the early evening train for Bison. He did not know 
what manner of man this brother of Fannie’s might be, 
but he had drawn a shrewd conclusion from her infre¬ 
quent reminiscences, dn the way of trade he had sold 
things to many a skeptical, close-fisted prospect by a 
psychology peculiarly his own, and now he sat late in 
the smoking-car, planning his campaign, as the train 
tore through the darkness. 

Not by admitting his intention of keeping the mystery 
alive could he hope to gain his point, for the mere sug¬ 
gestion of reawakened notoriety would arouse all the 
stubborn antagonism of the man, since he had been so 
ready to hurry his sister into a suicide’s grave. There 
would be his possible suspicion of Henry’s guilt to take 
into consideration, but that must be risked and overcome. 
If a spark of sentiment remained in that desiccated na¬ 
ture he meant to take advantage of it in a manner that 
would be wholly unsuspected, for only inadvertently 
179 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


180 

would William Gillespie, he was convinced, contribute a 
clue to the truth. 

Ed North had promised to look up Fannie’s late ad¬ 
mirers who had testified at the hearing- and see if any¬ 
thing could be learned from them. He was unknown 
to them and the easy camaraderie, which he could assume 
in spite of his reserve, ought to stand him in good stead, 
Henry reflected. He had seldom encountered a more 
winning personality than that of the young Southerner, 
nor one so thoroughly congenial on brief acquaintance, 
and he suspected that more latent energy and fire existed 
beneath that tranquil, almost drowsy exterior, than would 
have been guessed. 

His own life had been so dominated by his work that 
he had had no more time to devote to close companion¬ 
ship with other men of his age than he had for the 
society of girls, and this proffered friendship had come 
at a time when it was doubly grateful to his bruised 
spirit. 

Marian Gray had stopped him in the hall to wish him 
a pleasant trip and now his thoughts turned back to her 
as he made his way at last to his berth. What a differ¬ 
ence there had been between her and poor, foolish little 
Fannie! Bright lights and the hectic pleasure of gaudy 
restaurants and inane musical shows could hold little 
attraction for her sweet seriousness, and her modest re¬ 
serve made the thought of indiscriminate flattery and 
admiration seem almost a profanation. 

He had fallen hard for a pretty face, that was the 
trouble. It wasn’t Fannie’s fault that he had endowed 


LIGHT IN DARKNESS 


181 


her with qualities she didn’t possess. He looked back on 
his suffering when disillusionment came with a mixture 
of wonder and amused contempt, then with a pang there 
came the realization that this self-knowledge had come 
too late! If only he had been able to see Fannie as she 
really was, to understand the fundamental difference in 
their natures and to accept her refusal sensibly—if only 
he had never been so blind! 

No matter what the future might hold he was beyond 
the pale now! He had been accused of the murder of a 
woman and not even confession on the part of the real 
culprit, had there actually been one, could wipe out the 
stain! 

The roaring and swaying of the train seemed in accord 
with the tumult of his thoughts as he thumped his thin 
pillow restlessly. What a splendid girl Marian Gray 
seemed! How easy it was now to tell the real from the 
apparent worth! She wouldn’t be capable of leading a 
fellow on for malicious amusement or the good times he 
could arrange for her, she wouldn’t take without giving, 
pretend to a love she didn’t even know the meaning of! 

But why must he think of her? The dejection of the 
previous night returned, but he could not grasp its por¬ 
tent. What did it matter to him how splendid she was, 
except to be glad of the knowledge that there were girls 
like her in the world? He was through with all girls, 
all the hopes and dreams that another fellow might look 
forward to, sometime. They were not for him! 

He fell into an uneasy sleep at length and awakened 
only when the porter summoned him, to dress hurriedly 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


182 

in the half-light of early morning and presently descend 
to the bustling confusion of the busy station. 

Fannie’s brother kept a small store of some sort, and 
his home from which she had gone to the city was on 
Maple Street. That much he knew from what Sterett 
had told him of Mrs. Horton’s interview with William 
Gillespie; he hadn’t mentioned the matter to the land¬ 
lady herself for fear that she would guess the object 
of his trip. There had been casual references to the 
house by Fannie which he remembered, and he was sure 
he would be able to recognize it. 

It was still early. There would be time for him to 
get a shave and a cup of coffee and then catch William 
before he left to open his store for the day. 

Henry checked his bag in the station and hurried out 
on the wide Main Street of the old-fashioned town, 
already alive with traffic in which farm wagons rubbed 
hubs with urban trucks, trolleys clattered, and the ubiq¬ 
uitous small car darted everywhere. 

He found a barber shop, then a little lunchroom where, 
as he paid his check, he inquired the way to his destina¬ 
tion. It was three streets over, tree-lined and shady, 
with immaculate sidewalks and prim hedges. Each 
small, neatly painted frame house sat smugly in the cen¬ 
ter of its patch of lawn, with stiff flower borders along 
the brick paths and plants in decorous pots ornamenting 
the porch steps. 

They were as alike as peas in a pod, but the fourth 
from the corner, on the sunny side, boasted a cupola and 
a bulbous wing where the space above a bay window had 


LIGHT IN DARKNESS 


i 83 


been thriftily built out. Fannie had spoken of the 
cupola and the added room, and—yes, there was the 
iron dog under the ailanthus tree! 

A tall, awkward young man in his shirtsleeves, with 
pale, prominent blue eyes and sharp features, was hosing 
the porch steps, and Henry hesitated for a moment and 
then advanced up the path. 

The man lowered the nozzle of the hose and stood 
awaiting him inquiringly and Henry noted with some¬ 
thing of a shock the slight, indefinable resemblance to 
Fannie. Still he must be sure. 

“Can you tell me where Mr. William Gillespie lives ?” 

“Here,” the man responded laconically, sweeping back 
with a bony, large-knuckled hand the mouse-colored hair 
slicked flatly down over his low forehead. “What you 
want with him?” 

“If you are William Gillespie, Fve come up from New 
York to have a little talk with you.” Henry stood still. 
“I am Jordan.” 

“Jordan, hey!” Gillespie stared stupidly for a moment 
till he felt the water spraying over his shoes from the 
hose. “Feller that was arrested and set free t’other day? 
—Wait till I turn off this hose.” 

He laid it down carefully so that the stream played 
into the rain-gutter beside the path, then proceeded to 
the spigot protruding from the foundation of the side 
wall, while Henry watched his slow, methodical move¬ 
ments in amazement. Could he have sprung from the 
same stock as the vivacious, frivolous Fannie? 

“Now, then.” Gillespie approached him once more. 


184 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“No use tracking up the porch till it dries and my wife’s 
busy out back, but you can come on to the garage with 
me while I get out the delivery truck; always go to the 
store in it, saves the boy’s time while he’s sweeping up.” 

His nasal tones were not especially friendly, neither 
did they betray any open hostility, and Henry followed in 
silence down the straight cement driveway that led back 
of the house and grape-arbor to the squat, jerry-built 
garage. 

“Mr. Gillespie,” he began, “as soon as I was free I 
made up my mind to come to you. I feel there’s an 
explanation to be made; you’re the only one of your 
family left to hear it and I am the only one who can give 
it to you.” 

Gillespie lifted the hood of the light delivery truck 
which occupied a full side of the small building, and then 
turned with a gesture toward a broken-backed chair. 

“You can set there, if you like,” he offered. “I don’t 
know’s there’s any explanation due to me. I don’t 
think you done it, if that’s what you mean; my wife and 
I read the evidence real careful.” 

“I’m glad of that!” Henry cried quickly. 

Gillespie shrugged. 

“I calculate the police are satisfied now,” he remarked. 
“I hope so! All this here scandal’s been a terrible trial 
to my wife, and she was like to have a fit with the city 
reporters running here this week while your hearing was 
on! We didn’t go nigh it because we couldn’t do any 
good, not knowing anything, and Fan did enough to get 
our names in the papers as ’tis! It was real good of you 


LIGHT IN DARKNESS 185 

to come up and see me and I take it kindly, but we’d 
just as soon let it all drop now.” 

“Still, I want you to know how matters stood between 
your sister and me,” Henry persisted. “I had asked her 
to be my wife, but we were both mistaken and realized 
it in time. I was hard hit at first, but I got over it and 
had only the most cordial feelings toward her at the 
last.” 

“Humph!” Gillespie pushed his limp hair back once 
more and eyed his visitor shrewdly. “I calculate you 
weren’t the only one, down there to New York! There 
was a-plenty here, ever since Fan was old enough to 
have them fight over carrying her books home from 
school, and that’s what spoiled her. She got to think¬ 
ing the town boys weren’t good enough for her, but she’d 
always been set on getting to the city; nothing would do 
for her but the bright lights and expensive clothes and 
gewgaws, and all the cabarettes and high doings she’d 
been reading about and heard tell of, and she got ’em! 
I calculate she kind of played fast and loose with more’n 
one young feller like you, without a notion of taking 
them serious and settling down, and you ain’t to blame 
for the end of it. However it come about, ’twas the 
bright lights at the bottom of it!” 

“But your sister never forgot you!” Henry threw as 
much warmth as possible into his voice. “She talked 
of you often to me and I think she didn’t write because 
she felt you disapproved of her, but Mr. Gillespie, she 
was as charming and good as any girl who stayed at 
home!” 


186 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“We ain’t ever doubted her, but Fan never would 
listen to reason.” There was a softer note in the nasal 
tones. “I calculate I had something to do with spoiling 
her after our folks died; she had as good—and better— 
as any girl in town and I must have spent as much as 
three hundred dollars on her, all told, out of my share 
of the estate! Fan didn’t have a notion of money ex¬ 
cept to spend it foolishly, and I’d ought to have kept a 
closer holt on her than I did.” 

“Mr. Gillespie, what do you think did happen?” asked 
Henry. He did not want to break the trend of remi¬ 
niscence but felt obliged to force the issue. “Naturally, 
having cared for her once, I can’t get the thought of 
your sister’s death, and the manner of it, out of my mind. 
Do you think she killed herself? Would you ever have 
believed it possible?” 

“I don’t know anything about it!” Gillespie’s lean 
jaw tensed. “Fan would no more have been likely to 
kill herself when she was living home than a kitten 
would, but nobody’d have murdered her here in Bison, 
either! I don’t know what to think, one way or t’other, 
and I ain’t going to express an opinion. We can’t bring 
Fan back, and we can’t expect folks to put it all out of 
their minds if we don’t ourselves; that’s what my wife 
says.” 

“Your wife-” Henry stopped and framed his sen¬ 

tence anew. “She didn’t approve of her going to the 
$ity either?” 

Gillespie stared. 

“Tophet, no!” he ejaculated. “They didn’t get along 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS 


187 

together, from the first, for my wife's a sensible woman, 
saving and looking ahead, and soon’s we were married 
she put a stop to my humoring Fan about clothes and 
parties we couldn’t nowise afford. She tried to make 
Fan contented with plain things and a hullsome, busy \ 
life, but nothing influenced her except her hankering for 
lights and finery and excitement that my wife couldn’t 
abide. Fan used to pore over the pictures of Broadway 
in the papers, with the big electric signs blazing like fire¬ 
works as if they’d bewitched her, and photographs of the 
wimmen all covered with di’monds and gewgaws made 
her crazy for ’em herself.” 

“Well,” Henry began. “She was young and-” 

“So’s my wife!” Gillespie interrupted sententiously. 
“She don’t get herself up like a circus woman, though! 
She had a fit over the things the landlady sent up here 
after the police give ’em back to her—Fan’s duds and 
fake jewelry, I mean. The clothes wasn’t the kind for 
a processed church-member—all thin silk and low-necked, 
with no sleeves to speak of, and heels like stilts on her 
slippers!” 

“Lots of girls in New York dress like that,” Henry 
ventured, but not too argumentatively. He would permit 
the other to run on in his own way since he appeared to 
be in a loquacious mood, and glean what he could. 

“Then they ought to be spanked!” Gillespie com¬ 
mented. He reached into his pocket and produced a 
worn, leather-covered note-book. “As for those glass 
di’monds of hers, I’ve got a list here—nine different 
pieces! A hanging thing for her neck like a butter 



188 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


plate, a big necklace, a pair of long earrings, a breast¬ 
pin, a bracelet and four rings with bunches of little stones 
in ’em. They were the worst! One stone alone wouldn’t 
have been so bad on her finger, but all four of the rings 
just bristled with ’em! My wife was ashamed to have 
folks in town know about all that imitation stuff, but 
she thought it was sinful to keep it and have the good 
money it must have cost tied up, so I took it to a fancy 
store in Dunchester on my last trip and sold it, and it 
wasn’t worth more’n chicken-feed! My wife said Fan 
must have been crazy, decking herself out like that, but 
then she always had funny notions, different from other 
girls; right from the time she was born there were queer 
things about her.” 

The high, nasal voice had rambled on as he put the 
note-book away, but now Henry’s heart quickened a beat 
and he caught his breath. 

“What sort of things, Mr. Gillespie?” He tried to 
speak half-indifferently, but there was a hushed, ex¬ 
pectant note in his tones. 

“Well, lights, for one thing,” responded the other, un¬ 
conscious of the impression he was making. “Most chil¬ 
dren are scared of the dark, I calculate, till they get it 
trained out of ’em, but with Fan it was something awful, 
and after a while the folks saw she couldn’t help it, as if 
it had been born in her, and maybe ’twas! Darkness 
frightened her into convulsions when she was a baby; 
she’d sleep peaceful till the lamp was turned out and 
then wake right up and scream. She never got over it, 
either.” 


LIGHT IN DARKNESS 


189 


The thin voice seared like a tongue of flame into 
Henry’s brain and he tried to speak but his throat seemed 
closed. There had been no light in Fannie’s room when 
he followed the policeman who broke in the door! 
That nurse had testified to seeing the light go out 
suddenly. ... 

“Do you mean she always felt that way even when 
she grew up ?” he managed to articulate at last. “Right 
up to the time she left home was there a light in her room 
at night while she slept?” 

“Yes. That was the one thing my wife couldn’t stop. 
She thought it was just foolishness and a sinful waste 
with kerosene costing what it does, and she used to sneak 
in at night and turn the lamp out to try to break her of 
it, but sure’s she did Fan would open her eyes and 
shriek! Seem’s if her brain was awake all the time 
watching that light! I calculate she was marked from 
birth that way.” 

Henry scarcely heard the last remark. The light 
which had been turned out in Fannie’s room the night 
of her death had not awakened her! No outcry had 
followed! Her brain must then have been dormant in 
eternal sleep, her lips closed forever! Another’s hand, 
not hers, had extinguished the gas, another’s hand had 
first drawn that rope about her throat! Fannie had not 
killed herself, it was murder after all! 


CHAPTER XVI 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 

N O very clear memory ever afterward came to 
Henry of the passing of the next few hours. 
The significance of what he had learned from 
the inadvertent lips of William Gillespie, was so stupen¬ 
dous in its import, that it dwarfed every sensation and 
emotion that had come to him since the morning when 
the crime was revealed. With the last doubt swept 
away, the alternative which in spite of his intuitive con¬ 
viction had dogged his steps now gone forever, his path 
was clear before him, albeit it lay in an unknown 
direction. 

That he was no whit nearer discovering the identity 
of the murderer than when he had started upon his 
journey did not trouble him; now, with the possibility 
of suicide removed, nothing should halt him in his pur¬ 
pose! Somehow, the promise he had made to Judge 
Carberry should be kept to the letter! 

When his stunned faculties rebounded from the effect 
of Gillespie’s revelation his overwhelming impulse had 
been to get away, to shake the dust of Bison from his 
feet forever and rush back to the city, to the scene of the 
crime. Not here could there lie any clue to the wretch 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 


191 

who had taken Fannie’s life, nor the motive which actu¬ 
ated him! 

As soon as he decently could he took leave of her 
stolidly unconcerned brother, whose farewell to his un¬ 
expected visitor was as phlegmatic as his reception had 
been, and hurried back to the station. There he learned 
that the next through train to New York v?ould not 
arrive until noon and he spent the intervening time in 
an aimless wandering about the small city and its 
environs, for inaction would have been unendurable in 
the seething excitement which consumed him. 

Not so long ago Fannie herself in all her abounding 
youth and health had trod these same streets, attended 
this ornate high school still so aggressively new-looking, 
gone to these very shops and motion picture houses, per¬ 
haps even belonged to that gray, ivy-grown church over 
there! Behind each of these doors so smugly entrenched 
with hedges and terraced lawns must live those who had 
known her since babyhood; now she had been done to 
death cruelly, barbarously, and not one of them cared nor 
perhaps even gave her a thought except in half-disdainful 
pity for the weakness of her supposed suicide! 

Henry found himself staring curiously at the passers- 
by, his own bitter self-consciousness of the two days 
since his liberation forgotten. Perhaps these young 
people had played with Fannie as children, envied her for 
getting away to the bright lights! The bright lights— 
and now eternal darkness was hers! There was no 
trace of sentiment, no memory of past emotion and pain 
in his mental attitude but genuine sorrow for the happy 


192 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


young life so hideously ended and renewed allegiance to 
the cause he had undertaken. Fannie could not be 
brought back but she could be avenged; her murderer, 
whoever he was, must suffer to the fullest extent of the 
law for his crime! 

When noon came at last and the train puffed labori¬ 
ously out of the station, Henry settled himself with a 
sigh of vast relief in his seat. It would be midnight 
when he reached New York, too late to take any action, 
but already a vague plan was forming in his mind. 
Somewhere in their line of investigation the authorities 
as well as Lockwood Sterett must have overlooked some 
clue; so far as had appeared on the surface, so far as 
any of Fannie’s past associates seemed aware, her exist¬ 
ence had been an open book, and the fear she had be¬ 
trayed, her increasing nervousness and apprehension 
might have been due solely to the threats of Frank Ward. 
Whether this were true or not, Henry’s opinion of the 
race driver had not changed; the man was violent in his 
passions, primitive in retaliation for an affront from one 
of his own sex, but he was not the type to take physical 
revenge upon a woman, utterly incapable of a cowardly, 
cold-blooded murder! 

Jack Rogers, the screen actor, would have been equally 
out of the question, viewing his character from a totally 
different standpoint, even if, as Mrs. Moffat had ob¬ 
served, he had not been wholly incapacitated during the 
period when the crime must have been perpetrated, by 
the beating he had received at Ward’s hands. 

Hands! As the word framed itself in Henry’s mind 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 


193 


it brought with it a new thought. Those must have 
been strong hands indeed that tightened the rope about 
Fannie’s slender throat; strong hands, and quick, and 
sure, to do their work so deftly and swiftly that the 
doomed girl had no opportunity to voice an appeal for 
help in that sudden, terrible extremity! Who among all 
those with whom she had been associated possessed such 
dexterity and strength? 

The motive was buried in unfathomable obscurity, but 
a process of elimination would remove those for whom 
such an act would be an impossibility, saving precious 
time that might be spent otherwise in futile speculation. 
Henry realized that no one must be looked upon as above 
suspicion, however improbable their guilt would appear 
at a casual glance. 

Rogers was out of it, but Ward possessed the strength 
and nerve and quickness of thought and action, after all! 
His profession evidenced that and, if disappointed love 
and hot-tempered threats had been a sufficiently logical 
and powerful motive for the authorities to attribute to 
Henry in his own case, it must be gravely considered 
in regard to another. 

Strong hands and flexible! Who else possessed them ? 
Who that had never yet been given the least thought? 
Since all those with whom Fannie appeared to have come 
in close enough contact to have aroused emotions of any 
sort were known to each other by hearsay at any rate, 
it stood to reason that Henry himself must know of the 
murderer, he might actually have been in his presence, 
heard him speak, touched his hand! It might be some 


194 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


one he saw every day, like old Darley, who did have re¬ 
markable strength in spite of his fat, or Myrtle Harris, 
with her hands like grappling irons from ceaseless thrum¬ 
ming on the piano! Myrtle had always been envious of 
Fannie, jealous of her girlhood and piquant prettiness, 
and the unspoiled vivacity and charm which had won her 
so much admiration, and Simmy Darley had paid his 
middle-aged court and been flouted, perhaps with uncon¬ 
scious, heedless cruelty, but these two were manifestly 
beyond consideration on any score and Henry dismissed 
them with a shrug at the fantastic idea. 

The rest of the immediate household were equally 
exempt, of course, but who remained of Fannie’s former 
friends or associates? No woman could have broken 
into the house, nor, even if one had conceived a motive, 
would she have chosen such a method to gain her ends. 
What man, therefore, remained? 

Throughout the long afternoon and during his solitary 
meal in the dining car, Henry pondered long and fruit¬ 
lessly, but later in the smoker a fresh possibility occurred 
to his mind; Benjamin Newell! That sleek young show¬ 
man had given an impression of good-natured vulgarity 
on the witness stand and appeared sincere alike in his 
admiration for Fannie and his disclaimer of any senti¬ 
ment in his regard for her, but what had actually passed 
between them? How long and well had Fannie known 
him, and what motive if any could be assigned to him? 

What did any one know of the man? That he owned 
a concession called “the avalanche ride” at a beach resort 
and had shown occasional but not marked attention to 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 


195 


Fannie; that was all. There was nothing either sus¬ 
picious or reassuring in that, but he belonged to a world 
as far removed from those of the race driver and screen 
actor as theirs were equi-distant. He might be able to 
furnish a clue, voluntarily or unconsciously, and Henry 
resolved to interview him at the earliest possible moment. 

To-morrow would be Saturday, and that and the day 
following were the busiest and most crowded of all the 
week at such a resort. Newell would be likely to give 
him scant attention, if indeed he succeeded in getting 
the ear of the amusement purveyor, but by the same 
reckoning Monday would be the slowest of the seven, 
with fewer visitors and less prospect of patrons for the 
“ride.” 

On Monday, therefore, Henry would go to Knicker¬ 
bocker Beach and have a talk with the debonair Newell, 
but in the meantime there were two days in which to 
cover other fields. 

Could he carry on his investigations to their conclu¬ 
sion without the authorities getting wind of his activi¬ 
ties and purpose? They would not relish interference, 
especially from such a source, in the event that they had 
decided to drop the case, but he must chance that. He 
felt indifferent now to what those of Mrs. Horton’s 
household would think if they learned of his search. 
Nothing mattered but to find the murderer! 

Midnight came and the train drew into the Grand 
Central Station while Henry was still buried in his 
thoughts. How glad he’d be to get back to Mrs. Hor¬ 
ton’s! It seemed a year since he had been away, longer 


196 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


almost, than all those torturing days awaiting the action 
of the grand jury. He smiled faintly at the idea. Why 
in the world should he feel this way? It was home to 
him there, of course, but nothing was changed, nothing 
was different than the first time he went away last spring. 
The same faces—and one more! 

Marian Gray! His thoughts lingered over the name. 
It was just like her, somehow; sweet but dignified with 
no frills about it, no possibility of abbreviation to a silly, 
frivolous nickname. She would have been asleep long 
ago, but in the morning he should see her, talk to her, 
if only for a moment before she left for work. Would 
she be glad that he was back again? 

He shouldered his way through the clamoring taxi 
chauffeurs and boarded a cross-town car, then walked 
up the few blocks to his destination, still thinking of the 
girl he had met for the first time only two evenings be¬ 
fore. Why should she care whether he came or went? 
He was only a stranger who had been through much 
trouble and her nature had prompted her to be kind to 
him, just as she would be to anybody whom she felt to 
have suffered unjustly, but she couldn’t have any more 
personal interest in him. 

The house was silent, with only a dim light glowing in 
the hall as Henry opened the door with his key. He low¬ 
ered the lamp and tiptoed up the stairs to his own room. 
How still the house was and how good it felt to be home 
once more! He was healthily tired and his mind was at 
peace. To-morrow he would begin his search anew with 
redoubled energy and determination. To-morrow, too, 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 


197 


he would see Marian Gray again, talk with her, watch the 
color come and go in her cheeks, her eyes turn from blue 
to deepest violet! He didn’t attempt to analyze his feel¬ 
ings, he only knew that he’d missed her, wanted her as 
he had never wanted to see any one in his life before, and 
he fell asleep with a smile on his worn face. 

The rain was pattering hard against the upper sdsh 
of the window when he awakened, splashing in through 
the opened lower one to drench the chair on which he 
had carelessly thrown his coat the night before. No 
matter; it needed pressing anyway after that train trip! 
Henry whistled blithely as he tubbed and dressed; leaden 
skies and summer rain didn’t make any difference, and 
the storm wouldn’t interfere with his plans for the after¬ 
noon. Perhaps Marian Gray wouldn’t go to business 
that morning, and they could have a good talk. . . .? 

When he descended to the dining-room, however, she 
was already there with a becoming little brown turban 
covering her shining hair. 

She favored him with a smile and a little exclamation 
of pleasure. 

“Oh, when did you return, Mr. Jordan? I’m sure Mrs. 
Horton didn’t expect you so soon!” 

“I didn’t want to stay away over Sunday,” he replied 
lamely. How purple her eyes were, like pansies, this 
morning! “I’m glad I decided to come back; I think 
the country is gloomy in the rain, don’t you?” 

“No-o,” she dissented with a smile. “Perhaps I’m 
prejudiced, for I’ve lived there nearly all my life, but I 
love the rain pattering on the roof and dripping from 



198 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


the eaves; it makes the garden smell so good, too, and 
everything looks so fresh and dean afterwards. Did 
you have a nice trip?” 

“A satisfactory one; a little matter of business that I 
finished sooner than I expected.” He scarcely knew 
what he replied. In a sentence she had brought back to 
him the rainy days of long ago down in that Pennsyl¬ 
vania village before ever he came to the city. It was odd 
he’d never thought of them all these years! She be¬ 
longed in a garden, this gentle, demure girl! 

“Somebody come to see you yesterday,” Agnes' thin 
tones broke in upon his musing as she placed before him 
a steaming bowl of oatmeal. “A Mr. Newell, it was.” 

“ ‘Newell !’ ” Henry exclaimed in surprise. “What 
did he want, do you know? What time did he come?” 

“Late, around six o’clock,” she replied to his last 
question first. “He didn’t tell me his business, Mr. 
Jordan; just left a card for you and said would you 
look him up beginning of next week if you got back? I 
put it here, somewhere.” 

She crossed to the sideboard and returned with a card 
which bore in very heavy print the admonition: “Ride 
the Avalanche! Slide down the Mountain on a giant 
Snowbank! See Farms and Villages Crumple in Ruins 
in your Path and Sweep out on a Grassy Plain! Thrills! 
THRILLS!” Modestly in the left-hand corner appeared 
“Benjamin Newell, Prop.,” with “The Rialto, Knicker¬ 
bocker Beach,” below the name. 

Newell! Was it chance or fate that the concessionaire 
should have come to him? - Henry could not imagine 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 


199 


what his errand might have been, but he would not waste 
time in speculation. Saturday was a big day at the re¬ 
sorts—if the weather was clear! To-day in the pelting 
storm the Beach would be a deserted wilderness, its gaudy 
decorations draggled and blare silenced, with none to feel 
the allure of the printed invitation. If Newell lived in 
or near the resort he might shut up shop on such an x un¬ 
promising day and come to the city, in which event it 
behooved Henry to hurry; his other plan could wait, he 
must see this man at once! 

As he slipped the card into his pocket he glanced up 
to meet Marian’s eyes fixed upon him with a shade of 
concern in their depths, and smiled. 

“Newell is one of the witnesses who testified this week, 
you know,” he explained casually. “Can’t imagine what 
he wants; I never met him.” 

“I read what he said,” Marian responded quietly. “It’s 
really too bad they don’t let you alone, isn’t it? Why 
can’t they realize you’ve been through enough ?” 

“I don’t mind! In fact, I rather wanted to see this 
fellow, I think there’s something he can tell me.” Henry 
checked himself suddenly and drained his coffee cup to 
hide his confusion. Had he given himself away? He 
added hastily: “Of course I’ll be interested in—in the 
case until it is finally settled.” 

“Of course,” she nodded. “Your vindication was 
just but it was not the whole duty of justice, was it? 
That remains still to be done.—You will excuse me? I 
am afraid I shall be late.” 

She rose almost precipitately and he watched her 


200 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


slender, graceful figure as she adjusted the fur about her 
neck and moved to the door. How well she understood, 
and how perfectly she had expressed the situation! 
Justice was lagging, but it should be performed; the duty 
that still remained must be fulfilled! 


CHAPTER XVII 


TREASURE TROVE 

S HEETS of rain sweeping down on gray sand and 
a huddled regiment of bathhouses; on narrow 
streets of fantastic booths hung with crude, garish 
banners and streamers, on gaunt skeletons of scenic rail¬ 
ways and great swings, on the tarnished tinsel trappings 
of wooden horses prancing stiffly in a circle, on multitudes 
of electric light bulbs as whitely opaque as sightless eyes! 
A fairyland of pleasure touched with the wand of bleak 
reality; Knickerbocker Beach in the storm! 

A beetle-browed individual lounging morosely behind 
the counter of a shooting gallery directed Henry to the 
Rialto and he plodded along heedless of the puddles but 
shivering in the mackintosh he had donned in place of the 
spring overcoat which had gone to the tailor’s. Why 
hadn’t he told Agnes to remind the boy he would need it 
back that night? What if Newell weren’t around and 
he had taken this cold, soaking, dismal trip for nothing? 

Where in the world was the fool contraption called 
The Avalanche Ride? The whole place was a sordid, 
wretched mockery, as hollow and unwholesome as the 
craving for excitement to which it pandered! What had 
Newell come to him for, anyway? If he had any sus¬ 
picions or theories wouldn’t he naturally have taken them 
201 


202 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


to the police? He had no reason, from the evidence at 
the hearing alone, to lead him to think that Henry him¬ 
self was further interested, he had no way of know¬ 
ing-. 

All at once he caught sight of a giant structure loom¬ 
ing above and behind a wide-spreading, luridly painted 
canvas screen, on which were depicted scenes of appalling 
disaster such as the card had briefly mentioned. Henry 
did not need the flaring signs in front to acquaint him 
with what awaited within, for the structure of towering 
framework beyond was cunningly covered with gleaming 
plaster to represent snow and shaped like a straightaway 
toboggan slide, the wide, moderately steep slope dotted 
with miniature farmhouses and toy villages. 

More convincing than all, however, was the appearance 
in the turnstile entrance of a keen-faced, dapper young 
man in the late twenties, with sleek dark hair and a 
jaunty carriage of his narrow shoulders that Henry re¬ 
membered. He quickened his pace, the temporary ill- 
humor forgotten, and Benjamin Newell started forward 
with a smile which revealed an opulent gold tooth. 

“That’s the boy!” He shook hands with an unex¬ 
pected strength and vigor which made Henry wince. 
“That hash-slinger where you hang out didn’t think you’d 
be back before next week, but the sooner, the better! 
Ain’t this one bird of a day—not! I stand to lose a nice 
little piece of change, but I’m not worrying; having one 
good summer, I’ll tell the world! Come on inside and 
we’ll talk business.” 

“‘Business?’” echoed Henry as he followed Newell 



TREASURE TROVE 


203 


into a six-by-six office at the right of the entrance. What 
business could this enterprising show proprietor have to 
do with him? “I was given your card and message this 
morning, and it looking like an off day I thought Td run 
out and see what you wanted me to look you up about.” 

“Good enough!” Newell dragged forward a stool and 
seating himself on its mate beside the ticket window he 
produced a seal cigarette case decorated with prongs of 
green-gold. “Have a drag?—Listen, Jordan. I ain’t 
going to waste any time talking about what you’ve been 
up against; the bulls was looking for a big play and you 
was the goat, but they couldn’t put you through because 
it wasn’t there! Get me? Now, here’s my way of look¬ 
ing at it. It was a damned raw deal, but if you take 
it right you ain’t altogether out of luck. When you get 
a hook on the jaw like that, don’t lie there thinking how 
much it hurts and is gonna spoil your looks for the 
future, but get up before the count! This ain’t no par¬ 
son’s spiel, it’s rock-bottom sense! You’ve had a jolt. 
All right; don’t be thin-skinned about it. Make it pay 
you! Play the cards as they lay! Get the idea?” 

Henry laughed, but he flushed slightly as he shook his 
head. 

“Can’t say I do, Newell, but it’s good of you to be 
interested-” 

“ "Good,’ nothing; it’s business!” the other interrupted 
briskly. “You’ve been handed something a guy like you 
won’t want, but it’d be striped candy to me, and I’ll be 
willing to pay real kale if you’ll lend it to me for as long 
as it lasts. It’s jake right now, and good for the season, 



204 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


anyway, and that’s notoriety! You’ve got publicity; 
that’s the real thing! Capitalize it, make it hand you a 
dividend, don’t bury it! Put a fence around it and 
charge admission! You’re a martyr, see? Next to 
knocking, there’s nothing the public likes so much as to 
turn on the maudlin sympathy, and if it’s money in the 
bank to you, let ’em rave!” 

Henry straightened and his flush deepened. What was 
this brutally frank confidence worker trying to suggest? 

Before he could speak, Newell read his expression and 
went on quickly. 

“Don’t get me wrong, Jordan! I ain’t a low-life, kick¬ 
ing a guy when he feels down; I’m just putting it to you 
straight, from a business slant. Here’s my prop. For the 
ten weeks before Carnival, I’ll give you two-fifty, and 
three-fifty a-piece for the two weeks Carnival ’lasts. 
Maybe I can use you for a while after that on the South¬ 
ern wheel or, if you make good in the business on your 
own account, I can keep you on with me, give you a share. 
If not, thirty-two hundred won’t be bad pickings till 
you can ease yourself into another job, and all you’ll have 
to do will be to ballyhoo, like the bunk on that card I 
left for you. I’ll do the rest. What do you say?” 

Henry’s indignation cooled and he began to be amused. 
After all, Newell wasn’t a bad fellow according to his 
lights. He was proposing to exploit the hideous suf¬ 
fering and degradation of which his caller was so bitterly 
conscious, but as he had stated candidly it was sheer 
business to him and he had offered a fair deal. He was 
of the caliber to make capital of the hanging of his own 


TREASURE TROVE 


205 


grandmother, should such an opportunity arise, and 
Henry privately thought it not unlikely. Aloud, he said: 

‘Til confess it hadn’t struck me I’d acquired a new 
market value, Newell, and though your terms are more 
than fair I can’t say it listens very good to me. I’d feel 
like a side-show freak! You mean you’d want me to 
stand out in front here and gather in the crowd?” 

“That’s the idea! You won’t carry any signs or 
placards, but they’ll stop for a look at you—I’ll see to 
that!—and then you hand ’em the same old come-on spiel 
with any snappy new stuff you want to spring. If it’s 
a hot day—and we’re due for a lot of scorchers in the 
next two months—loud pedal on the snow, and if there’s 
a raw wind blowing in from the sea give ’em the horrors 
good and strong; houses crushed, folks buried alive, 
whole villages wiped out! Put the tremolo into it! I 
went to hear you pull your own stuff on the stand 
Wednesday, and believe me, boy, when you get warmed 
up to it you ought to bring ’em in like a revival!” 

Henry shook his head, smiling. 

“I’ll think it over and let you know,” he promised. 
“I’m not exactly looking for a job, Newell, though it’s 
mighty decent of you to offer me this. I’ve been with 
my firm ever since I quit school and I wasn’t thinking of 
leaving.” 

Newell stared, the butt of the cigarette dangling from 
the corner of his mouth. 

“Ain’t you tumbled yet that you’ll be canned ?” There 
was a compassionate note in his voice. “I hate like hell 
to wise you up, but I figured you had guessed it! You’re 


206 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


a big drawing card for me, but that grand jury business 
ain’t gonna help you to sell fancy office furniture, and 
when you show up at the works you’ll get a lot of sym¬ 
pathy, but a new guy’ll have your order book! Better 
come in with me.” 

“My job is still open.” Henry decided to give no defi¬ 
nite refusal now to the other’s proposition. His own pur¬ 
pose was uppermost in his mind and he wanted Newell 
to talk but hesitated to broach the subject. “The firm 
hired Sterett to look after my interests, you know, and he 
gave me their assurance that I could come back.” 

“That’s just to save their faces,” Newell shook his 
head cynically. “They may take you on again for a few 
weeks, but they’ll trump up some bunk or other to let 
you out, sure. It was white of them to sign up Sterett 
for you, though! He’s a whizz-bang! If he was in my 
line he’d rake ’em in high, wide, and pretty! They had 
you framed for a goal!” 

This was the opening for which Henry had been 
waiting. 

“It looked that way, didn’t it ? I couldn’t believe, my¬ 
self, that Fannie Gillespie had killed herself. You testi¬ 
fied that she hadn’t any notion of it the last time you 
saw her.” 

“Hell, no!” the other ejaculated. “Unless she went 
cuckoo all of a sudden, Fannie never took the Big Jump. 
She was the livest wire I ever knew and happy as a kid 
at a circus all the time! It was a good thing for me I 
wasn’t dippy enough to let myself think she’d hitch up 
with me! I was all right to chase around with and show 


TREASURE TROVE 


207 


her the bright lights, and she could trust me to be a good 
pal, but nix on the husband stuff and I knew it! A car¬ 
nival circuit is no place for a girl unless she’s been raised 
in the business and I don’t figure to quit for a skirt, but 
I sure liked that little lady, and admired her down to the 
ground!—I guess you’d rather I shut my trap, though.” 

He paused with a trace of embarrassment in his voice, 
but Henry replied hastily: 

“No, it does me good! What I told on the stand was 
the truth; I was cured weeks before that terrible thing 
happened, and I’m not going around grouching about it 
now, but I’d give a lot to have the mystery of it cleared 

up.” 

“So would I!” Newell struck the counter behind the 
ticket window a resounding slap. “It’s the queerest thing 
I ever heard of! I’m glad it don’t make you feel bad 
to talk about it, for I don’t mind telling you I can’t get 
it out of my head. It knocked me cold, like I said, when 
I read what had happened to her, and then on top of it 
that you’d been run in on suspicion of croaking her! I 
didn’t know what to think, but as the evidence against 
you leaked out, it didn’t look so much to me. I’d have 
written notes a lot stronger if I’d been turned down as 
raw as that, and they hadn’t anything else to hang on 
you. When I got subpoenaed and went to testify at the 
hearing, I took a good look at you and knew then there 
was nothing to it, and your own story cinched it the 
next day. I’ve been wanting to talk the whole thing 
over with you ever since.—Jordan, unless that little girl 
went off her nut she didn’t do it, but who> did?” 


208 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“That’s what I’ve been asking myself !” Henry 
^rugged. “She didn’t tell you any more than you re¬ 
peated ? That last night you took her out, I mean, when 
you went to the Venetian Gardens?” 

“Not a thing! Just that a guy was acting ugly be¬ 
cause she wouldn’t marry him, and he’d got her going, 
for she didn’t know what he might pull off.” 

“I see. That might have applied to me as well as to 
Frank Ward, only I’d got over it,” remarked Henry. “I 
thought she might have said something else. She might 
have had something on her mind besides a jealous, dis¬ 
appointed admirer.” 

“Lord knows!” exclaimed Newell soberly. After a 
moment he broke out: “It don’t seem like her! She never 
could have got into any trouble so deep there was only 
one way out, and as for making herself miserable over 
anybody else so that she wouldn’t want to go on living 
—-well, it just ain’t in the cards! She was only a big, 
happy kid, and didn’t stop to think she might be handing 
a guy a rotten deal. We was just made to stick around 
and give her a good time, and she sure could enjoy her¬ 
self! I remember the day she came down here—first 
Sunday we opened—and she had the time of her young 
life even before she found the ring in the sand!” 

“ ‘She found a ring ?’ ” Henry repeated. 

“Sure she did! It was a bird, too, enough like the 
real thing to fool most guys! Didn’t she tell you about 
it ?” Newell looked his surprise and then added: “That’s 
a hot one! I forgot you wasn’t speaking much!—Well, 
I’d asked her to come out and have lunch at The Grotto; 


TREASURE TROVE 


209 


that’s the swell new place down on the beach front where 
the waiters are dressed like fishermen and you net your 
own lobsters and haul in live fish all out of a big tank. 
It tickled Fannie to death and I couldn’t hardly get her 
back to the table before she grabbed the whole catch! 
She had on a little green dress, I remember, and a hat 
with spring flowers on it, and looked like a million bucks 
if you didn’t get too good a slant at all that fake junk 
she would trick herself out in!” 

“I remember,” Henry nodded absently. He was im¬ 
patient for the other to go on but wisely let him continue 
his reminiscence in his own fashion. 

“It was a big day with us, but I got another guy to run 
the Ride for me, and she came out bright and early. 
Nothing would do but I must take her on every last stunt 
in the whole Park, me that grew up with all the bunk, 
but I got a new line on it just by watching the fun she 
was having! After lunch we went down on the beach; 
it was pretty early to go in, but we sat down on the sand 
and lamped the rest, and that was when she found the 
ring. We was talking and laughing and she was dig¬ 
ging deep in the sand and letting it run through her 
fingers, when all of a sudden she let out a little squeal and 
began brushing off something she’d uncovered. It was 
a ring with a single great big stone in it, and when the 
sun struck it, it glittered like a headlight turned on full! 
Say, there’d have been nothing to it if it had been real! 
I know sparklers, and that was the size of three carats 
at least, blue-white and cut like the genuwine article. 
An average good three-carat diamond now is worth be- 


210 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


tween three hundred and three-fifty a carat, so Fannie 
might have dug up well over a grand, but her luck wasn't 
running that strong. The ring was phony, I seen that, 
but I had to look good before I'd believe it, for the set¬ 
ting itself was mighty fine work and of some kind of 
white metal that was the nearest thing to platinum I ever 
lamped. 

“Fannie was as happy, though, as if it had come 
straight from a swell jeweler's, and it didn’t cloud up 
none for her when I told her it was fake! It was just 
as pretty to her, and that’s all she cared about; she was 
like that. I will say it looked grand on her finger when 
she’d stripped off the other junk that was like dirty glass 
beside it, and she kept flashing it in the sun and exclaim¬ 
ing over it all the way back here to the Ride. The crowd 
was getting so thick I had to take hold myself, but she 
didn’t mind, she just got on the avalanche and stayed 
on! I guess she slid down it forty times, and was hav¬ 
ing just as much fun at the last as the first time! I took 
a flash at her once or twice when her car came in on the 
rollers for a fresh load and she waved to me and stuck 
out the ring as proud as a little peacock! 

“The mob thinned around six for awhile and I took 
her to dinner, and then sent her home on a sight-seeing 
bus run by a guy I knew would look out for her. She 
said she’d come out again the next Sunday, but in the 
meantime I dated her up for a show Wednesday night.” 
Newell drew a deep breath and for a moment gazed 
out through the little window at the rain which had set¬ 
tled into a dull, monotonous drizzle. Then he concluded: 


TREASURE TROVE 


211 


“We went, all right, and that was the last time I saw 
her. When the next Sunday came she was dead!—I tell 
you, Jordan, if some guy did croak her I’d like to get a 
chance at him, that’s all! There’d be an inquest instead 
of a hearing, if I did!” 

“Then they’d try to indict you, but you’d get off easier 
than I did.” Henry rose slowly. “I’m glad to have 
had this talk with you, Newell, and I’ll let you know to¬ 
morrow about taking up that proposition of yours. 
Thanks for offering it, anyway.” 

“Better think it over good before you turn it uown,” 
the other advised as he held out his hand once more. 
“It’ll be a big day to-morrow if the storm lets up, and I 
can use you right off the bat by getting out some hand¬ 
bills in a hurry. Phone me the minute you make up 
your mind. You’ll get the spiel in no time. So long!” 

All the way back in the train Henry’s mind was grop¬ 
ing vaguely but industriously for something which 
seemed to elude him. Fannie had found a ring, “enough 
like the real thing to fool most guys”; a huge, single 
stone, a solitaire! Where was it now? 


CHAPTER XVIII 


“no questions asked” 

W HAT had become of Fannie’s find? Ceaselessly 
the question pounded into Henry’s brain dur¬ 
ing luncheon, home at Mrs. Horton’s, and later, 
when he paced his room in profound thought. 

He wasn t quite sure that the fact he had gleaned fitted 
anywhere in the grim puzzle, but it was the second salient 
point and he clung to it until he should have finally placed 
it. Fannie couldn’t endure the dark, yet in darkness she 
had been found at the last; she had by chance come into 
possession of a huge solitaire ring just a few days before 
her death and had been manifestly delighted with it, yet 
when the end came it seemed to have disappeared. Was 
there any connection between the two apparently unre¬ 
lated facts? 

Newell had professed to know diamonds and he said it 
was an imitation capable of deceiving most people; had 
it deceived some one? In the confusion following the 
discovery of the tragedy, had some one yielded to temp¬ 
tation and taken the ring before Stevenson had gathered 
Fannie’s effects together? 

As plainly as though they had just been uttered, Henry 
heard William Gillespie’s words ringing again in his 
ears as he described the poor little trinkets which had so 
212 


“NO QUESTIONS ASKED” 


213 


disgusted his wife. . . and four rings with bunches 
of little stones in ’em. They were the worst! One 
stone alone wouldn’t have been so bad on her finger, but 
all four of the rings just bristled with ’em!” Clearly he 
had never received the one with the single imitation 
diamond, and it was unlikely that Fannie had disposed 
of it before her death when she had been so enchanted 
with it. It was equally impossible that it could have dis¬ 
appeared while in the hands of the authorities or when 
transferred to Mrs. Horton for shipment with the girl’s 
other personal possessions to her only relative. 

Who then had stolen it? What a jolt it must have 
given them when they tried to sell it and learned it was 
only paste, after all! They might have known better 
than to suppose a girl of Fannie’s position would have a 
jewel worth in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars! 
But if the thief were some one who knew Fannie, or had 
heard the story of how the ring had come into her posses¬ 
sion, they might readily assume that it was a genuine 
diamond and she herself ignorant of the truth. 

Then a fresh thought flashed across his mind, and it 
was Henry who received the jolt. What if they had 
been right in their surmise and the jewel was real? 
Newell was not an expert and he might well have been 
mistaken in his cocksure judgment. He admitted that 
it “glittered like a headlight,” that he had to look closely 
before he would believe it was “phony,” for it was cut 
like “the genuwine article” and the setting the nearest 
thing to platinum he ever saw. 

Fannie would naturally have taken his word for it, 


214 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


and that it would matter little to her whether the stone 
were real or false as long as it delighted her eye, Henry 
could well believe. Stranger things had happened, 
greater treasure had been resurrected from seaside 
sands before this, and such a resort as Knickerbocker 
Beach drew rich as well as poor of a certain pleasure- 
loving type. Had keener eyes than hers or those of the 
proprietor of the avalanche discovered the truth and 
taken advantage of the opportunity so horribly presented ? 

What if the opportunity had been made? Henry halted 
in his ceaseless pacing and a cold sweat broke out upon 
him. Murder had been committed for less, and if that 
were indeed the motive it would explain many facts 
which had been maddeningly inconsistent and obscure. 
Yet the sheer horror of it shook him to his very soul and 
he felt as though in the grip of some hideous malady that 
turned his blood to water and made his senses reel! Had 
poor little Fannie’s happy find been the innocent cause 
of her death? It was too frightful to believe and still 
the thought could not be driven from his mind, but in¬ 
stead it took a more tenacious hold upon him with each 
passing minute. He must prove or disprove it at all 
costs! 

The first step would be to satisfy himself as to the 
genuineness of the diamond, but how could that be accom¬ 
plished since it had disappeared? It might have been 
washed ashore from some shipwreck after an indefinite 
lapse of time, but more likely some one had lost it in the 
same manner as that in which it had been found again. 
In that case would the loser not have tried to recover a 


“NO QUESTIONS ASKED” 


215 


jewel of such great value? What would be the most 
logical means that would suggest itself, the almost uni¬ 
versal means to accomplish such an end? 

With an inarticulate exclamation Henry seized his hat 
and dashed down the stairs, hurrying out into the rain 
with a blank disregard for his appearance, and seething 
with inward excitement. In twenty minutes he was in 
the office of a newspaper publishing house far downtown, 
feverishly going over the files for the preceding May. 
Fannie’s body had been discovered on Friday, the twen¬ 
tieth. The preceding Sunday had therefore been the 
fifteenth. It was the opening of the resort, but the ring 
might conceivably have been lost a day or two before. 
It was more likely, however, that it had occurred that 
morning, since it had remained so near the surface of the 
sand, and Fannie had discovered it that afternoon. 

Henry turned to the “Lost and Found” columns for 
Monday, the sixteenth, and scanned them' carefully, but 
although the advertisements inserted by anxious owners 
were numerous, the articles whose return was sought 
were none of great intrinsic value and his spirit sank. 
Perhaps some other paper had been chosen as a medium, 
perhaps he was making a mountain out of a molehill and 
Newell’s estimate of the ring was correct, after all! Yet 
there was a bare chance that the loss had not been imme¬ 
diately discovered or for some reason the insertion of a 
published appeal been delayed. 

Henry tried the issue for Tuesday, the seventeenth, and 
ran his eye slowly down the line. Great Danes and 
Pekinese, Chows and mongrels—had all the dogs in town 


2l6 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


vanished on the same day? Cats, too, a canary, furs, 
brief-cases, even umbrellas and books, were interlarded 
with the piteously optimistic pleas for the return of 
shabby purses containing tragically small sums. The 
jewelry at last! A bracelet, a platinum bag, wrist 
watches, brooches-- . . . 

All at once a few lines in larger type caught his atten¬ 
tion as though printed in letters of living fire! Then 
maddeningly the page wavered and blurred before his 
eyes and his heart seemed to cease beating. He waited 
in an agony until his vision cleared and the paragraph 
stood out once more. 

“Lost. Knickerbocker Beach, Sunday. Solitaire dia¬ 
mond ring. Three hundred dollars’ reward paid for in¬ 
formation leading to its return. No questions asked. 
Apply Apartment 60, The Belgravia, Park Avenue.” 

Henry read the brief advertisement over and over, 
although that second glance had rivetted it on his brain 
for all time. He could scarcely believe his good fortune, 
for many people used merely their initials and the address 
of a local branch office of the newspaper, and there had 
been, too, a not remote chance that the loser was one of 
the vast floating population patronizing one or another 
of the hotels, and after such an interval could not easily 
be located. 

He knew the Belgravia, as it happened. A prominent 
financier whose suite of offices he had furnished resided 
there in state, and he remembered it as one of the most 
palatial of the mammoth apartment houses flanking that 
avenue of stupendous opulence. Homes there were held 



“NO QUESTIONS ASKED” 


217 


only on leases that insured permanency and any one liv¬ 
ing in the Belgravia in the preceding May would in all 
probability be still in residence, or, if traveling, their 
address known. They would be unlikely possessors or 
advertisers of false jewels—but what would a denizen 
of the Belgravia be doing at a plebeian resort such as 
Knickerbocker Beach? 

The thought did not dampen Henry’s enthusiasm, how¬ 
ever, and he set out on his quest, as heedless as before 
of his umbrella-less state in the driving storm. He haled 
the first taxi he encountered and drove into the great, 
square inner court of the towering structure almost be¬ 
fore he had formulated his mode of procedure. 

As it was, he found it no easy matter to gain admit¬ 
tance without stating his errand and at last he was forced 
to give a partial explanation to the gorgeously attired 
major domo who blocked his way. 

“Tell the lady who occupies Apartment Sixty that I 
have called to see her in reference to a private matter, a 
loss which she sustained last spring,” he announced. “I 
must see her in person, or a confidential representa¬ 
tive.” 

Obviously impressed by his choice of phrase the re¬ 
splendent retainer bowed and vanished, to reappear after 
an interval and escort him to a private entrance and a 
tiny elevator of breath-taking elegance which whirled 
him noiselessly up to the sixth floor and directly into a 
spacious hallway. 

Henry received a vague impression of many mirrors, 
silken panels and hangings, and soft lights dispelling the 


218 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


gloom, and then a small, suavely smiling Japanese butler 
stood before him and escorted him to an intimate little 
apartment, half boudoir and half reception room, where a 
lady rose with ill-concealed eagerness to greet him. 

She was very tall, very blonde, and very beautiful, with 
a regal carriage and an air of gracious condescension, yet 
a glance sufficed to explain the Knickerbocker Beach epi¬ 
sode. Panoplied with every borrowed attribute of 
wealth, it was patent that this charming personage was 
not to the manner born, and her announcement pro¬ 
claimed it to Henry. 

“I am Mrs. Culliver. You wished to see me, I 
believe.” 

Mrs. Culliver! Old Jeremiah Culliver, the coal baron, 
had startled society and furnished much material for the 
Sunday supplements more than a year before, by marry¬ 
ing the daughter of one of the humble comrades of his 
earlier days in the collieries, and great had been the stress 
laid by the more socialistic organs on the fact that Mary 
Murdo Culliver was a child of the people. 

Henry bowed. 

“I want to see you, Mrs. Culliver, if you are the lady 
who advertised a certain loss in the papers on the six¬ 
teenth of last May,” he replied. 

“A ring? A diamond solitaire?” she asked quickly. 
“Sit down, Mr.-?” 

“Jones,” he supplied, gravely. “Will you describe the 
ring to me, please ?” 

The lady’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. 

“Suppose you describe to me the ring you—have in 



“NO QUESTIONS ASKED” 


219 


mind,” she suggested. “If you can produce it I'll raise 
the reward to five hundred, but not a penny more! My 
husband knows about it now, so it doesn’t matter so 
much, and you won’t dispose of it easily elsewhere, for 
word has gone out to watch for it.” 

Henry flushed and then laughed in sheer amusement. 

“I remember. ‘No questions asked/ ” he said. “You 
think I stole it, Mrs. Culliver? My assurance that I did 
not would no doubt be useless, and anyway it is imma¬ 
terial. There is a chance, however, that I may be able 
to regain it for you or let you know where it is, and that 
is the only point at issue. You may incur some expense 
in getting possession of it again, but the reward doesn’t 
interest me.” 

Mrs. Culliver looked at him long and keenly and then 
colored slightly in her turn. 

“I beg your pardon. I thought, you see—I mean, you 
must have some object, of course, in coming to me with 
information now after all these months, and I never have 
understood how I came to lose that ring! The diamond 
was three and a half carats, a beautiful blue-white stone 
and very brilliant. It wasn’t worth much in comparison 
to.the rest of my jewels; I have rings valued at ten times 
as much and more, but I set a lot of store—that is, I 
thought a great deal of it because of associations. It was 
foolish of me to wear it down to the Beach that day, but 
I hadn’t any idea of going there when I left home—how¬ 
ever, that doesn’t matter. I know I had it on when I 
started out and never missed it until I returned and pre¬ 
pared to dress for dinner. If you have such a ring, or 


220 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


know where it is, I’ll make it worth your while to tell 
me, even if you don't want the money, Mr. Jones!” 

She emphasized the name, but Henry did not heed. 
Instead he responded gravely: 

“It will be worth my while if you will tell me all the 
circumstances under which you lost it, Mrs. Culliver. I 
can’t promise positively to recover it for you, but I think 
there is a good chance of it, or I should not have intruded 
this afternoon.” 

“You didn’t come just for the pleasure of telling me 
that.” She hesitated. “You saw my advertisement, of 
course ?” 

“Only to-day, when I looked for it in old newspaper 
files,” he explained. “I never guessed the very existence 
of the ring until this morning.-—But do you care to tell 
me about it?” 

“If you really have a chance of getting it back, but 
I’m sure I don’t understand you!” Mrs. Culliver shrugged. 
“I left the house about ten o’clock in the morning, I re¬ 
member, and drove out in one of my cars with a guest 
from my home town, an old friend of the family. He 
had heard that Knickerbocker Beach was opening for the 
season that day and suggested that we run out and see 
what it was like. It wasn’t the sort of place that would 
amuse my husband, but I—-thought it might be interest¬ 
ing as a curiosity, and agreed. It was quite awful, 
though, and after going in one or two of the rides and 
things we were bored and disgusted with the crowd, so 
we went down to the beach and sat on the sand for 
awhile.” 


“NO QUESTIONS ASKED” 


221 


“You wore gloves?” Henry asked. 

“Of course!” Mrs. Culliver stared and then under¬ 
stood. “Oh, I did take them off while we sat there and 
played with the sand, and I did not put them on again till 
we were back in the car, so I thought that in that jostling 
mob as we literally fought our way back to the parking 
space somebody must have—Oh, do you mean I lost it in 
the sand?” 

“You didn't discover it was gone when you were put¬ 
ting on your gloves?” Henry ignored her question. 

“No. We lunched at a little inn on the way home, and 
then some people dropped in for tea, and so it wasn't 
until just before dinner that I missed it. I didn't know 
what to do at first, for I hadn't meant to mention the 
place to my husband; he would have thought it too—too 
common, and so it is, I suppose, but I hadn’t looked at 
it that way before! I didn’t make up my mind to 
advertise until the next day, and I hoped he wouldn't see 

it, but one of his interfering secretaries-!” She 

paused, biting her lips. “That's all I can tell you, Mr. 
Jones. If you can locate it for me let me know.” 

Henry took his departure with the dread conviction 
strengthening with every passing moment. He had dis¬ 
covered the motive for Fannie Gillespie's murder! 



CHAPTER XIX 


A DAWNING HOPE 

*6 T" T OWDY, there!” A low but cordial voice hailed 
I Henry from the bottom step of the stairs as, 
weary and drenched, he let himself into the 
house late that night. “I’ve been missing you for the 
last twenty-four hours, somehow or other, Henry! That’s 
why I’m waylaying you now. I’ve got a little medicine 
here for you.” 

Edgar North had risen and Henry held out his hand 
with a tired but welcoming smile. 

“Gee, I’m glad to see you, Ed! Come on up to my 
room; it’s pretty late, but we can talk low.” 

He led the way on tip-toe and the other followed 
noiselessly, closing the door of Henry’s bedroom with the 
merest click of the catch. 

“Here you are.” He held up a squat little earthenware 
jug from the top of which a half inch of swollen cork 
protruded, caked with dust. “Take a little drop of this 
before we begin, it’ll keep the dampness from your bones! 
See, it’s never been opened since I brought it No’th 
with me.” 

“Humph!” Henry glanced about helplessly with a rue¬ 
ful smile. “Corkscrews have gone out of fashion lately 
222 


A DAWNING HOPE 


223 

and I never got my knife back, you know. No persua¬ 
sion will get that cork out, North!” 

“Won’t it? You fetch me that little glass over there. 
“One slim hand tightened about the neck of the jug and 
the fingers of the other like steel pliers twisted the cork 
loose and drew it out. Henry watched the dark, syrupy 
fluid gurgle into the glass and then raised it to his lips. 

“ ‘Medicine ?’ ” he queried with a little chuckle as the 
fiery warmth stole tingling through his veins. 

“That’s what my grandmother calls it.” Ed’s dark 
eyes twinkled. “She makes it out of right pretty little 
berries, and never can understand that the Almighty does 
something to it after she has finished!—But why didn’t 
you come up to my room last night? If I’d thought you 
were coming back home so soon-!” 

“I didn’t want to wake up the house,” Henry explained. 
He hadn’t even remembered his compact with Ed last 
night and now he almost regretted having made it, much 
as he liked the other. He felt a disinclination to take 
any one into his confidence now. A secretiveness hitherto 
foreign to him had been born with his latest discovery 
and he felt that he must pursue it alone. “I thought 
you’d be at breakfast-” 

“You had gone long before I came down,” Ed inter¬ 
rupted. “I lunched out and no one mentioned your re¬ 
turn until this afternoon. Then you didn’t come in to 
dinner and so I’ve been waiting. Did you learn anything 
up where you went?” 

“Only enough to make me more sure that it—it wasn’t 
suicide.” He couldn’t bring himself to mention the miss- 




224 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


ing ring, somehow. The thing was too stupendous; it 
had dovetailed so miraculously into what he had found 
out that day that he couldn’t talk about it yet. “William 
is a stingy, narrow-minded hick and under the thumb of 
a wife who must be a holy terror! He doesn’t dare 
call his soul his own, but I think he was fond of his 
sister in a sneaking kind of way. He reminiscenced a lot 
—just little, trivial things about Fannie’s growing-up 
days, but they showed me that I’d thought what was true 
about her; she never had it in her to kill herself, no 
matter what had happened.” 

Ed had listened attentively, but there was frank dis¬ 
appointment in his expression. 

“Is that all?” he asked. “Lord, man, that isn’t any¬ 
thing! You thought that before you went up there, but 
it isn’t proof! Miss Fannie may have changed a heap 
since she came to New York. If somebody did break 
in and kill her, did you get any kind of a notion from 
your confab with her brother as to who it might have 
been?” 

“No.” Henry admitted. He wouldn’t say anything 
about the light either, he decided; not till the whole thing 
was finished and he could tell it all to his partner. “I 
haven’t the slightest idea, even now, who it might have 
been, but I know it was somebody else, not Fannie her¬ 
self, and I’m not going to give up till I get to the bottom 
of it!” 

“We won’t, Henry!” Ed threw back his head defi¬ 
antly. “If you say it was murder, we won’t rest till we’ve 
found the man who did it and hand him over to the 


A DAWNING HOPE 


225 


law!—Did you know that showman came to see you yes¬ 
terday afternoon? Benjamin Newell, Miss Fannie’s 
friend ?” 

“Yes!” Henry laughed. He was on safe ground here 
and the determination was growing to keep his knowledge 
to himself, for it was only too plain that the other pri¬ 
vately believed in the suicide theory. With that in the 
back of his mind, he would only hinder and not help, in 
spite of his good intentions. “What do you think Newell 
wanted? To offer me a job!” 

“You?” Ed raised his eyebrows. “What was his 
offer? Did he want you to ride a performing elephant?” 

“No. To be a whole show by myself; Henry Jordan, 
ballyhoo artist and released murder suspect!” He out¬ 
lined the proposition humorously, but Ed’s face dark¬ 
ened. 

“The low-down Yank!” he exclaimed. “He’d be 
strung up for less, down where I come from! A hound 
dog would have better instincts than that!” 

“It’s a question of point of view, that’s all,” remarked 
Henry, defensively. “Everything’s grist that comes to 
his mill, and I guess he’s had some pretty hard knocks 
in his time.” 

“No, suh!” Ed shook his head. “Ornery meanness 
like that is born, not cultivated. A poltroon who would 
offer such a proposition to a gentleman would be guilty 
of anything! I hope you put him in his place!” 

Henry smiled again, realizing the futility of argument 
with the hot-headed young Southerner, and then abruptly 
turned the subject. 


226 BRIGHT LIGHTS 

“Did you find out anything yourself while I was 
away ?” 

“Nothing. I talked with Mrs. Horton and Mrs. 
Moffat and even sounded Mr. Darley, but they all appear 
to have accepted the fact that Miss Fannie killed herself; 
they say it's always possible that somebody may have a 
secret trouble or sorrow, but there’s got to be a motive 
for murder, and that motive is bound to come out, yet 
there just isn’t any in this case. We’ll have to look in 
another direction, Henry, but don’t feel downhearted 
about it; we won’t give up if it takes months to find out 
the truth!—May I offer you a drop more of my grand¬ 
mother’s remedy?” 

Henry declined and when the other had gone he 
dragged c 7 his wet clothes, spreading them carefully to 
dry before hanging them in the closet beside the newly- 
pressed coat, which, after all, had come back from the 
tailor, and crawled into bed. Since leaving Mrs. Culliver 
he had trudged from pawnshop to pawnshop in the vain 
hope that the thief had disposed of the ring in that fash¬ 
ion, but he realized such a method of search would prove 
unending. If the person who took the ring had had 
any previous experience, he would know of professional 
receivers of stolen goods whom Henry could never dis¬ 
cover. It seemed a hopeless task that he had set for 
himself, and a sense of futility pervaded him as he fell 
asleep at last. 

The sun was shining brightly when he awakened and 
found to his disgust that it was almost noon. Agnes had 
kept some fruit and coffee for him, however, and Mrs. 


A DAWNING HOPE 


227 

Horton hovered about him solicitously, but as he ate, his 
dilemma weighed upon him. 

What was the next logical step to pursue? Were he 
the loser of the ring he would naturally have notified the 
police, but such a course now was out of the question and 
he felt as though a stone wall had suddenly loomed be¬ 
fore him. There must be something under a million 
pawnshops in the city, yet he might even have visited the 
one where the object of his search reposed on the previous 
day and been easily hoodwinked by the proprietor, if the 
latter had divined from Henry’s unskillful queries that 
he was in possession of a purloined article. Not in 
such fashion would he achieve his purpose! 

Inaction only increased his perplexity and he tossed 
aside his paper half an hour later, and taking his hat and 
coat, started out for a brisk walk. North left the 
house early, Agnes had informed him, and he was glad 
of it, for he felt that he wanted to be alone to think. 
He must decide upon the next step and solitude was es¬ 
sential. 

He changed his mind abruptly, however, when he de¬ 
scended the high front stoop and encountered Marian 
Gray at its foot. She was dressed in deep bluish violet 
that matched her eyes and he had no need to guess her 
errand, for she carried a neat but worn little prayer 
book. 

“Good morning!” she smiled. “This is a change from 
yesterday, isn’t it?” 

“A—big change,” he assented gravely. “You’ve been 
to church? I was just going for a walk in the park to 


22 8 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


clear the cobwebs of late rising out of my head; you’re 
not troubled that way, I see, but I wonder if you would 
care to come with me?” 

“I’d love to,” she replied with simple directness and, 
turning, fell into step beside him. “Did you see Mr. 
Newell?” 

He darted a quick, sidelong glance at her serene face. 
Did she know of his quest, and approve ? Her words of 
the previous day returned to his mind, that justice was 
yet to be done, and he drew a deep breath. 

“Yes,” he replied. “He thought that I had lost my 
position and wanted to offer me one, that was all. I 
thought it was very decent of him.” 

“Yes,” Marian nodded. “You won’t return to your 
own work for some weeks?” 

“I don’t know. I’d like to get back into harness 
again, it’s the only thing left for me now, but I have 
something to accomplish. When that is done, I’ll take 
up my work once more.” 

A silence fell between them and was broken only by 
desultory remarks until the park was reached. The 
storm of the previous day had wrought havoc here and 
there, but they came at last to a little path winding 
through tall trees heavy with luxuriant green, and here 
they seated themselves on a sun-warmed bench. 

They were well away from the drive and only an occa¬ 
sional equestrian, galloping along the bridle path, broke 
the stillness with a rhythmic thud of hoofs on the soft 
loam, until a highly nervous but greedy squirrel arrived 
to chatter inquiringly at them. 


A DAWNING HOPE 


229 

With a sheepish laugh Henry produced a pocketful of 
nuts and Marian held out her hand. 

“Oh, may I have some ? I’ve been feeding them here 
since I came.” 

“Have you?” he asked in surprise. “I didn't know 
very many people had discovered this spot. I came alone 
after every big storm last winter, afraid I'd be laughed at 
for a soft-hearted fool if I told, but the little fellows got 
to know me. This must be a youngster.” 

The youngster had paused, his tail quivering, and after 
surveying them both with his bright, beady eyes, he chose 
Marian, climbing up fearlessly beside her. An older 
member of the clan appeared and promptly claimed 
Henry’s attention, and not until the nuts were gone and 
the avid pair departed did they utter a serious word. 

Then Marian turned to him. 

“Do you really feel that there is nothing left for you 
but your work?” she asked softly. “It seems a pity, with 
all your life before you, but I suppose that doesn’t mean 
so much when you’ve—you’ve lost what made it worth 
while to live.” 

Henry stared in honest surprise. 

“Life’s always been well worth living, and it is, even 
now, when I’ve been through what has got to keep me 
apart forever from the usual things that come into other 
people’s lives. You didn’t think I meant that my heart 
was broken? That was just a—a mutual mistake last 
winter and no harm came of it to—to any one,” he stam¬ 
mered, feeling himself flushing hotly, but Marian’s eyes 
were downcast. “I think you’ve guessed how I feel 


230 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


about it, though, and what Fm going to do if it is hu¬ 
manly possible. It’s all I owe to the past, but it is a 
debt that must be paid! If public justice has failed, the 
obligation rests on any one who—who cared once. Fve 
had time to think it all out and realize my position. Fd 
like to go away and start somewhere all over again, but 
that would be cowardly, and Fd be a cheat among stran¬ 
gers who didn’t know about me. If Fve got to carry a 
brand I’ll carry it openly and take my path alone.” 

“What is there to know about you, except that you 
have suffered for some one else?—That a terrible mis¬ 
take has been made?” She lifted her clear eyes at last. 
“You carry no brand! It’s just a hurt that will heal 
and you’ll be all the stronger for it! Why, you’ve every¬ 
thing in the world before you! Your trouble hasn’t set 
you apart, it’s brought you all the closer to people who 
think and feel! I have guessed what you mean to do 
if you can and I—I honor you for it, but it didn’t surprise 
me. You did care once, and there’s no one else to clear 
her name now of the slur of suicide, and bring the crim¬ 
inal to punishment. I shall hope with all my heart for 
your success!” 

They started homeward a little later, but a feeling of 
dazed wonder held Henry almost mute, and after the 
stuffy dinner he escaped Ed North’s expectant presence 
and hurried from the house. The desire for solitude 
had returned greater than before, but from another 
reason. 

What was this wonderful thing which had come to 
him? Marian understood everything and she had not 


A DAWNING HOPE 


231 


been surprised, she had expected it of him! More than 
all, she, whose opinion mattered more after just these 
few days than that of the whole world beside, did not 
feel that he was marked, degraded, even through no fault 
of his own. He had everything still before him, she had 
said. Did “every thing’’ mean some time a girl like 
her? 

But there was no one in all the world like her, he knew 
that. No one could ever understand as she did, no one 
could think his thoughts, look on things with his eyes, 
feel as he did, about the fundamentals of life! It was as 
though they two walked alone, together, and a swift, 
almost incredulous hope came like a song to his heart. 

Perhaps, when he had succeeded in his quest and all 
the shadowed present was forgotten, he might sometime 
venture to ask her to walk beside him forever! She was 
all of life now, he realized that. Mistaken love had 
taught him to recognize the real depth of the emotion 
which surged within him, and as she had come to him 
in his darkest hour so he knew that only in her presence 
would there be light. Perhaps, sometime. . . . 

Night had long since fallen again when he stole into the 
house, and this time Ed had evidently understood his 
evasion of the afternoon, for no one intercepted him and 
he went softly to his room. 

To-morrow he would start out with renewed energy 
and hope, for now he must not fail! Surely, before 
morning, some plan would come to him! It had all been 
sheer luck, so far, but if fate had taken a hand, surely the 
way would open before him! 


232 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


That diamond ring! Who besides Newell had known 

she found it? Who but Newell-? 

Henry stifled a cry as the name flashed across his mind, 
seeming to bring with it a great, ghastly light. Newell! 



CHAPTER XX 


THE MAN IN GRAY 

H ENRY sank down upon the side of his bed. The 
thought which had come to him was blinding, 
dazzling, in its significance, yet with a sudden, 
swift clarity of vision his mind raced back over his inter¬ 
view on the previous day with the proprietor of the 
“Avalanche Ride,” and in every well-remembered word 
he found confirmation. 

Benjamin Newell knew better than any one else how 
the ring had come into Fannie’s possession. He said he 
“knew sparklers”—he probably had good reason to! He 
must have known from the instant his eyes rested upon 
it that the diamond was real and of great value; had 
the plan been forming in his mind then to despoil the girl 
of it even while he assured her that it was merely paste, 
like the cheap little trinkets which satisfied her uncritical 
taste ? 

No definite way of robbing her of it had apparently 
occurred to him then, but he made an engagement to take 
her out on the following Wednesday night, probably 
trusting that some plan would come to him in the mean¬ 
time. He must have weighed the risk of another’s dis¬ 
covery that the jewel was genuine before then, but per- 
233 


2 34 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


force accepted it, and if a scheme did formulate itself in 
his mind it must have miscarried on that Wednesday, and 
he grew desperate! 

How the thought of crime first entered his mind and 
the steps he took to accomplish it, whether or not he were 
the man whom Mrs. Moffat had seen loitering in the 
areaway across the street on that Tuesday evening, and 
what vital need could have driven him to such a fright¬ 
ful act, were details which Henry did not trouble to con¬ 
sider then. Newell supposed he had seen the ring and 
heard the story of its finding from Fannie’s own lips; 
he admitted as much and it was evident from his manner 
that he would not have referred to it otherwise, but he 
had wasted no time in assuring his caller that there was 
no doubt of its being a fake stone. 

Sending for the just-vindicated man had been a stroke 
of genius on his part. If his proposition had been ac¬ 
cepted he would at one gesture have placed Henry under 
his eye where he could watch his every move and discover 
if his continued interest in the case was likely to prove 
a menace, and also have reaped a handsome profit by 
exploiting him and his shame and suffering! He had 
offered more for a season of Henry’s time than the ring 
would have brought three times over in pawn or at out¬ 
right sale, but the young man realized bitterly that as a 
drawing card to attract the morbidly curious he would 
have brought a far greater sum to the little window be¬ 
side the turnstile. 

No tender sentiment had existed in Newell’s heart for 
Fannie, to give him the slightest twinge of compunction 


THE MAN IN GRAY 


235 


for the dastardly crime! He had been proud of her 
appearance, her prettiness and style, she amused him, but 
when all at once she stood between him and a large 
amount of money he had apparently wiped her out of ex¬ 
istence as unconcernedly as he would have twisted the 
neck of a kitten! 

He had a tremendously strong grip, Henry recalled. 
Only once, somewhere lately, had he seen fingers so 
strong! The ring must have been sold at once, of course, 
or pawned. . . . 

Then all at once a strange thought came to Henry 
Jordan. It shot across his brain like a lightning streak, 
searing and shrivelling, and he lay staring into the dark¬ 
ness with wide eyes in which the light of an astounding 
revelation slowly dawned. It seemed so incredible that 
he cogitated for long and then springing from his bed, 
began to dress quickly but noiselessly. When he was 
fully clothed once more he put out the light and taking 
his hat in his hand slipped silently from the room. 

It was almost dawn when he returned and his deeply 
lined face, as he lit the gas again with a shaking hand, be¬ 
trayed the hideous, long-sustained strain through which 
he had passed, but his eyes glittered oddly as, after lock¬ 
ing the door, he seated himself and drew from his pocket 
a slip of paper. 

It was a pawnticket, issued on the twentieth of the pre¬ 
ceding May to one “John Nicholas” for eight hundred 
dollars, loaned by D. Uhlfelder of Third Avenue, on a 
solitaire diamond ring. May twentieth! The very day 
of the murder! “John Nicholas” had lost no time in dis- 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


236 

posing of the wretched jewel which had cost a life! 
There remained only to prove that it was the one which 
Mrs. Culliver had lost and that “Nicholas” was the man 
he suspected, and his task would be ended. 

He’d heard somewhere that when a person used an 
alias he instinctively chose one with the surname, at least, 
beginning with the same letter as his own name; it was a 
slender thread, but it formed part of a fabric of circum¬ 
stantial evidence that was gradually assuming unbreak¬ 
able proportions. 

Coincidence or not, miracle, blind chance, or a deliberate 
gift of the gods, Henry felt that his theory must prove 
true; the ring in Uhlfelder’s keeping was the one which 
Fannie had found and for the possession of which she 
had been killed, and the man who pawned it was he whose 
hands had drawn the rope about her throat! 

With a twitching, haggard face and nervous tremors 
shaking his whole body, Henry alternately paced the floor 
and sat sunk in profound thought until dawn broke fully, 
and when at last he threw himself down for an hour of 
uneasy slumber it was to start up again with a cry of 
horror from a hideous, distorted dream. He took a cold 
shower, dressed again and hurried down to the dining¬ 
room before Agnes had finished setting the table. 

She brought him some breakfast, however, and he 
gulped it down and left the house, going straight across 
town to Third Avenue. 

The shutters of Uhlfelder’s pawnshop had evidently 
just been taken down, and the loan broker himself came 
forward from the back of his store and bent inquiringly 


THE MAN IN GRAY 


237 


over the counter, in which reposed the usual miscellany 
of cheap jewelry and battered silverware. He was a 
mild-appearing little old man with a long, rather sad 
countenance and a compassionate look in his faded eyes 
as though the countless tales of sorrow and bitter need to 
which he had listened through the years had laid a burden 
upon his spirit. He pushed the skull-cap far back upon 
his bald, wrinkled head and then spread his claw-like 
jiands on the counter as he peered at Henry through gold- 
bowed spectacles. 

“What can I do for you, young man?” 

His voice was gentle, almost deprecating, and he waited 
expectantly as Henry produced the ticket, but shielded 
it with his palm. 

“A diamond ring was pawned here on the twentieth 
of last May,” Henry began without preamble. “You lent 
my friend eight hundred dollars on it and I bought the 
ticket from him the other day. Never mind what he 
sold it to me for, I’d like to see the ring and find out if 
I got stung or not. If it isn’t worth what I paid and the 
interest I won’t bother to take it out, but I’ll see that he 
buys this back, all right! It’s number 224097* 

The old man nodded and rubbed his chin as he studied 
his visitor with shrewdly appraising eyes. What he read 
in Henry’s face seemed to reassure him, for he nodded 
again and asked: 

“What is your friend’s name?” 

“John Nicholas,” responded Henry promptly. “It’s a 
lady’s ring, belonged to his dead sister, in fact, and he 
was only keeping it to have the diamond reset sometime 


238 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


for himself, but he told me he’d made up his mind it’d 
look too sporty. If he came clean, it’s a solitaire, blue- 
white and over three carat in weight-” 

“That’s it!” D. Uhlfelder gave vent to a gaping- 
toothed smile and held out his hand for the ticket. “I re¬ 
mind myself well of it, for not often does such a beauty 
come to my store! I shall not be sorry if you do not 
redeem it, young man, for it is worth much more, but 
the diamond market was uncertain then and my cash was 
low. So many loans do I make in the spring, fur coats 
and household goods, that people perhaps do not mean to 
take out again, that I cannot give to your friend more 
than eight hundred. He is not pleased, but it is the best 
I can do; moreover it is a lady’s ring, as you say, and I 
do not know your friend, I must be careful.” 

“I don’t know him very well, either!” Henry forced a 
laugh. “That’s why I wanted to see the ring before I 
drew my money out of the bank. I’m getting it for a— 
a lady.” 

A solitaire, blue-white and weighing over three carats! 
Uhlfelder had confirmed Mrs. Culliver’s description! It 
was the ring! Henry could scarcely contain himself as 
the old man rubbed his hands together, still bobbing his 
head and smiling, the ticket lying upon the counter be¬ 
tween them. 

“A lady? Ah, then I am glad you get it, my young 
friend! No lady could have a handsomer jewel! Often 
have I taken it from my safe to admire it and much 
happiness should it bring!” 

Henry shuddered as Uhlfelder picked up the ticket 



THE MAN IN GRAY 


239 


once more and pottered off toward the rear of the store. 
Happiness? It had brought crime to the quiet house¬ 
hold across town, death to Fannie Gillespie, and the un¬ 
speakable ignominy and torturing suspense of the un¬ 
founded accusation to himself! Imperishable, what 
misery would it not bring to generations to come! 

He shuddered again as the old man returned and laid 
before him a slender band of platinum with the single, 
glittering diamond seemingly poised upon it. To Henry’s 
sickened eyes it appeared to wink wickedly up at him as 
though they shared between them some horrible secret, 
and he drew back in shrinking loathing. 

“You are surprised, my young friend!” Uhlfelder 
had misinterpreted the gesture and he laughed in gleeful 
pleasure. “You did not believe it was so brilliant! See! 
Blue sparks it sends out as it is turned in the light! Most 
happy should the lady be to have such a treasure!” 

Henry shook his head, contriving to throw a shade of 
dubiety in his tone. 

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a little too showy.” He 
could think of no other excuse to one who did not know 
the sinister history he attributed to the jewel. “I guess 
I’d. better have the lady see it, Mr. Uhlfelder. I’ll go 
and get the money from the bank and bring her here in 
about an hour.” 

Three-quarters of an hour later a limousine drew up 
at a nearby corner under the rattling elevated road, and 
an eager face peered out. Then a hand beckoned and the 
liveried footman leaped from the box and opened the 
door as Henry approached, hat in hand. 


240 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Good-morning!” Mrs. Culliver smiled nervously with 
a warning glance in the direction of the manservant. 
“That poor family you have brought me to see, Mr. 
Jones,’—do they live near here?” 

“Just around the comer,” Henry replied. “I think it is 
better to walk, if you don’t mind; your car would over¬ 
awe them.” 

He eyed her critically as she alighted and turned to 
give a low-voiced direction to the footman, and Mrs. 
Culliver did not fail to observe his scrutiny, for once 
around the comer she asked: 

“Is my appearance suitable? You asked me over the 
telephone to dress as plainly as I could.” 

Henry was no connoisseur but he felt vaguely that the 
dark suit in its artful simplicity betrayed the handiwork 
of an expensive tailleur most blatantly and the chic little 
hat reeked of Paris, but there was no help for it and he 
replied diplomatically: 

“I am sure it is quite suitable, Mrs. Culliver. We are 
going to a loan broker’s, you know, a pawnshop. I 
have just seen a ring there which I think is yours and 
you have only to identify it for the police to recover it 
for you without charge. It was pledged for eight 
hundred.” 

“I’ll redeem it if it really is mine,” Mrs. Culliver an¬ 
nounced. “I wouldn’t want an innocent person to lose 
because of a dishonest one, and then, too, my husband 
would be furious if I called in the police.” 

“You must decide that, of course,” Henry agreed. “I 
had to tell a plausible story in order to see the ring at all. 


THE MAN IN GRAY 


241 


so please remember that you are a—a friend of mine 
and I am supposed to be buying the ring for you. If it 
is not yours, simply say you do not like it, that it’s too 
big a stone, or something, but if it is yours, we can tell 
the truth to the pawnbroker. He’ll be only too glad to 
get rid of it without trouble from the authorities.” 

Uhlfelder advanced beaming upon them, but at a 
closer view of the lady his lean jaw dropped and an 
anxious look came into his eyes. Mrs. Culliver came 
shrewdly to the rescue. 

“I’m crazy to see the ring!” she gushed. “My—my 
friend says it’s lovely, but I’m afraid it may be too big a 
diamond- 

“Not a bit, ma’am!” the old man interrupted. “Fit 
for a princess is it, but not loud, not flashy! See! It is 
wonderful, yes?” 

“It’s mine!” Mrs. Culliver cried with an utter change 
of tone. “I’d know it anywhere, and see how it fits me!” 
She had torn off her glove and slipped the ring on her 
finger. “The person who pawned it was as bad as a 
thief even if he did find it!” 

“You positively identify it?” Henry asked as Uhlfelder 
backed away from the counter in wordless dismay. “Can 
you prove that it is yours?” 

“My husband can!” the lady exclaimed. “He can 
bring the jeweler here who sold it to him!” 

“My God!” The old man raised tremulous hands. 
“Never have I taken stolen goods, never have I had 
trouble with the police! For forty years I am in 
business——!” 




242 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“You’ll have no trouble!” Mrs. Culliver interrupted. 
“You see, I really did lose it and whoever picked it up 
must have brought it to you. I’ll redeem it for the full 
value of the ticket and the police will never know-” 

“They must!” Henry interrupted in his turn and some¬ 
thing in his tone made them both turn and stare at him, 
the ring for the moment forgotten. “The police must 
know, and I’m afraid you won’t have your diamond 
again right away, Mrs. Culliver! The person who picked 
it up from the sand where it dropped from your finger 
didn’t bring it here. She thought it was just a fake stone 
as she had been led to believe and five days later she was 
murdered for it!” 

“Murdered!” Mrs. Culliver gave a little shriek. “Oh, 
how terrible! How do you know? Who are you!” 

“A woman—killed!” Uhlfelder’s hands clutched at his 
bare temples. “My God! My God!” 

“A young girl,” Henry went on, his voice curiously 
level. “She was strangled with a piece of clothesline 
and her body hung to the bedpost to make it look as if 
she had committed suicide. But she was murdered for 
that ring there, and the eight hundred that it brought!” 

“The Gillespie case!” the old man gasped. “You-! 

I thought I knew you, your face was it familiar and now 
I remind myself! In the papers you have been, only 
last week! You are-!” 

“Yes, I’m Jordan, the fellow who was held for mur¬ 
dering her!” Henry announced grimly. “I’m here now 
to find out who really did kill her, who ‘Nicholas’ is 
who pawned the ring! Come, Uhlfelder, you say you 





THE MAN IN GRAY 


243 

remember when it was brought to you; what did the man 
look like?’’ 

“He—he was young and dark! Darker than you, and 
very slim, with shoulders like a woman!" faltered the old 
man. “He looked like a fine young gentleman and car¬ 
ried himself with a strut but he talked quick, and so much 
slang he used! I couldn't understand him, hardly, 
though he was not like a tough. Never would I have 
thought him a gunman, a crook, and as for a mur¬ 
derer-! My God! It cannot be!" 

Dark, slim, “with shoulders like a woman!" Slangy 
and quick of speech—it was the man he suspected to 
the life! 

“Was his hair dark, too, and slicked down?" Henry 
demanded. 

“You know him!" exclaimed Uhlfelder. “Flat his 
hair was, and shiny, and he wore a fine gray suit, very 
light and elegant, of good cloth and the latest cut. I 
figured that easy I could let him have twelve dollars on 
it if he’d brought it to me then and still I shouldn’t stand 
to lose nothing! That was when he first came in, you 
understand, but when he pulled out that ring I wasn’t 
thinking of suits any more! He wanted fifteen hundred, 
but that was just asking. It was good business, though 
he knew the stone wasn’t worth that, he was nobody’s 
fool! Six hundred I offered him and came up to eight 
—a thousand I would have gone, but he was too anxious, 
so enough was enough! He took it and I wrote the name 
he gave me—‘Nicholas’—on that ticket. If it is not his, 
am I a mind reader that I should know ?" 



244 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


His bony arms were gesticulating wildly now and his 
shaking voice had taken on a thin, strident note. Mrs. 
Culliver was leaning on the counter sobbing hysterically, 
but for the moment neither noticed her. 

“What time did he come, on the twentieth ?” Henry 
pursued. 

“In the afternoon, late,” the old man answered without 
an instant’s hesitation. “That much I remind myself, 
but not the hour.” 

“Did you ever see him before ?” 

“Not before or since, have I seen him, yet I should 
know him again,” asserted Uhlfelder solemnly, his tones 
losing that high, hysterical note. “Show me the young 
man! I tell you quick, is it or isn’t it ‘Nicholas’!” 

“The police will do that!” Henry promised and Mrs. 
Culliver wrung her hands. 

“Oh, don’t drag me into it!” she moaned. “My hus¬ 
band would never forgive me and what have I done? I 
don’t know anything about this terrible affair, I only hap¬ 
pened to lose my own ring there on the beach, and if 
the girl had been honest enough to look for my adver¬ 
tisement she wouldn’t have died-!” 

“She thought it was only a fake, you know,” Henry 
reminded her, patiently. “There’ll be no scandal for you 
if you don’t try to leave town.—Uhlfelder, I’ll hold you 
responsible for that ring, and mind you don’t open your 
mouth about it till a man comes here to see you from 
headquarters.—I think his name will be ‘Stevenson/ 
Mrs. Culliver, I’ll have to turn this ticket in as evidence, 



THE MAN IN GRAY 


245 

but you know where your ring is and you’ll get a receipt 
for it. Shall I take you back to your car?” 

For the rest of the day Henry rushed about the city in 
desperate haste from booking offices to a pretentious gray 
stone house on the Drive, and after a hurried trip to 
Brooklyn he returned to visit various modest apartment 
houses and a boarding-house or two in the theatrical 
district. 

It was midnight before he dragged himself home at 
last and tumbled into bed, but he was grimly content. 
To-morrow would see the end of it all! To-morrow he 
would face “Nicholas” with the truth! 


CHAPTER XXI 


STEVENSON RECEIVES AN OFFER 

FTER breakfast the next morning, Henry drew 
Ed North aside. 



^ “I’m afraid you’ll think I’ve treated you pretty 
shabbily, old man, when we made that compact and all,” 
he began. “I did have a little more I could have told you, 
but I wanted to test it out first and I promised myself 
that if there was anything in my theory, I’d let you in 
on it before the finish. Ed, I think I’m nearing it!” 

“No!” Ed exclaimed, flushing with excitement. “I 
kept out of your way because I thought I was intruding, 
that you-all didn’t want my company! I didn’t know 
you were working alone on your problem! What have 
you found out? Was it really murder?” 

“Not so loud!” Henry warned with a glance over his 
shoulder into the dining-room. “We can’t talk here, and 
I suppose you’ll have to hurry down to that bond 
trader’s-” 

“No, they’re sending me over to Philadelphia to-day, 
but I’ll be back here right early!” The soft, liquid drawl 
had quickened. “I ought to reach the city by six or seven 
this evening.” 

“Then I’ve a lot to talk over with you, Ed; you’ll have 
the surprise of your life! Maybe another fellow or so 




STEVENSON RECEIVES AN OFFER 247 

will come to see me, but they won’t know my real object 
in asking them. I want you to listen to them.” 

“I’ll be right glad to come!” Ed smiled. “I can’t see 
what you’re getting at, Henry, but I reckon you-all know 
mighty well what you’re doing and I’m tickled clear down 
to the ground to know that you’re willing to let me be 
in at the death! I’ll go to your room straight from 
dinner.” 

Henry’s investigations that morning took him into 
vastly different sections of the city than on the day be¬ 
fore and noon found him at a huge rambling building far 
down on Center Street. He ascended wide, shallow steps, 
hurried down an echoing corridor and paused before a 
door at the end which bore in large, plain letters the 
words “Homicide Bureau.” 

He had paid one previous visit to police headquarters, 
but that had been in the enforced company of Stevenson 
immediately after his arrest, when he had been subjected 
to a protracted and grilling examination the memory of 
which still made him shudder. Now his mission was in 
connection with the same affair, but his presence had not 
been solicited and would certainly be unwelcome unless 
he succeeded in convincing his hearer that he would be 
able to make good his assertions. 

With a little smile he opened the door and walked 

in. 

A broad rail divided the space immediately about him 
from the main part of the room which was large and 
light, with desks and typewriter tables scattered about. 
At the nearest of these a bull-necked heavy-browed young 


248 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


man sat turning over a sheaf of papers, but he glanced 
up and then rising, came forward. 

“What do you want?” he asked. His voice was 
abrupt, but as his eyes ran quickly over the visitor a 
sharp gleam of recognition came into them. “Are you 
looking for Stevenson, Jordan?” 

“Yes. I’ve got a little information for him.” Henry 
could not recall having seen his questioner before but 
cynically the reminder came to him; of course he was 
“known” at headquarters, now! 

The burly young man thrust one hand negligently into 
his coat pocket and with the other opened the gate in 
the rail. 

“He’s ’way over there, at the end.” He had raised 
his voice a trifle and now he called: “Hey, Steve! Some¬ 
body wants to see you!” 

Henry was serenely unconscious of the fact that the 
announcement had been a well-understood warning and 
he was being covered every step of his progress across 
the room. Stevenson had looked around with an almost 
imperceptible nod and now he greeted the other in a brisk, 
business-like tone. 

“Hello, Jordan! What’s on your mind?” 

“A lot, but most of it would be Greek to you now!” 
Henry responded cheerfully. “I’ve got a little dope for 
you, that’s all. No hard feelings, I hope, because you 
failed to put it over last week? The Lord knows you 
tried hard enough!” 

He laughed’ as he spoke, but he had used the word 
“failed” with intent and the allusion told. Stevenson 


STEVENSON RECEIVES AN OFFER 249 


grinned a little wryly but there was evident relief in the 
relaxation of his tensed figure. 

“Dope, eh!" His tone was weary but tolerant. “Here, 
sit down, Jordan. Sure I tried to get you held for trial, 
for I thought I had the straight goods on you, but the 
guys on the grand jury didn't agree with me.” 

“If you still think so you're due for a surprise," re¬ 
marked Henry. “I know you were on the level about it 
and that’s why Eve come to you now. It wouldn't be 
fair to have a precinct man put it over on you after all 
your work, but you’re laying down on the job-" 

“I am, eh?" Stevenson interrupted quickly with an 
assumption of bluster. “You're out of it now, young 
feller, but I don't mind telling you I’m on a new 
lead-" 

“Don't tell me! Save it for the newspaper boys! 
Henry exclaimed. “They’ll listen to it till they're tired 
hearing it, or a new case comes up. Old stuff, Stevenson! 
You fell down once. What’d you give to land the man 
who put that rope around Fannie Gillespie's neck?" 

Something in the earnest hush which had. fallen upon 
his voice and the steady, purposeful light in his eyes made 
the detective straighten in his chair. 

“I’d give my next chance up before the Board for pro¬ 
motion!" he declared. “Look here, Jordan! When a 
guy like you, that's been let out for lack of sufficient evi¬ 
dence, comes around with theories and suggestions we 
don’t pay much attention to him as a rule; we figure he’s 
gone kind of bugs about the case and let him down easy, 
but with you it's different. I’m glad enough to listen 


250 BRIGHT LIGHTS 

and if I think there's anything in what you've got I'll look 
into it." 

Henry smiled again and shook his head. 

“You don't understand. I’ve got the man but you've 
got nothing! I'll do what there is to be done myself, in 
my own way and my own time. I just thought you'd 
like to be there to gather him in, that’s all." 

“What's the idea?" Stevenson flushed. “If you're 
playing a hunch you can go it alone, but if you've got 
facts, proof, concrete evidence, come across! Amateur 
stuff don’t get over in a big pinch; you let me handle it, 
providing you've treed the right bear." 

“The evidence is concrete enough and I've got it, or 
rather, somebody is keeping it for me. You'd never get 
it in a million )^ears because you wouldn't know how to 
begin looking for it, though if you read the papers you 
had it under your eyes days before the murder was com¬ 
mitted/’ Henry paused and added: “I'm not bragging 
or trying to get a rise out of you, Stevenson, I'm just tell¬ 
ing you what I can now. You got the dope on me and 
some other fellows who admired Fannie Gillespie, to put 
it mildly, and you figured that there couldn't be any 
other motive for her murder than jealousy or revenge 
for getting turned down, but there was, though the poor 
girl didn’t even know it herself!" 

“Didn't know it!" the detective echoed, blankly. “What 
kind of bunk are you handing me?" 

“That's what Fannie Gillespie thought it was—bunk!” 
Henry nodded. “Up to a few days before her death 
there wasn’t a reason in the world why anybody should 


STEVENSON RECEIVES AN OFFER 251 


want to kill her. I knew that, but I didn’t know that 
something had happened then which made it worth while 
to put her out of the way, according to the murderer’s 
opinion. That’s what stumped me, there being no motive. 
When they let me go last week I was about ready to 
think she must have killed herself, after all, but some¬ 
thing kept telling me she didn’t. I talked it over with 
another fellow at the boarding-house—you remember that 
young Southerner, North, I guess?” 

“Yes!” Stevenson snapped. “Go on!” 

“Well, he offered to help me do a little investigating 
on my own account, and he’s been great! Without 
realizing it himself he’s put me on to some points that 
meant everything! I don’t believe I could have worked 
it out if it hadn’t been for him, and though I’ve kept my 
discoveries to myself, I’m going to tell him everything 
to-night, for it’s only coming to him.—However, that 
first talk with him after I was set free strengthened my 
opinion that Fannie hadn’t committed suicide, and on an 
off chance Thursday night I ran up to Bison to see her 
brother.” 

“Her brother!” The detective stared. “I pumped 
that hick dry!” 

‘'Not about Fannie’s babyhood,” murmured Henry. 

“Her—what!-!” 

“Did you know there was something odd about her, a 
fear that she was born with and never got over? I 
learned something else from her brother, too, but never 
mind about that now. I was right behind Burke when 
he broke down her door; you saw everything a little later 



252 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


just as we found it. Nothing had been changed or 
touched. Do you remember that room ?” 

“Of course!” There was a quickened, eager interest 
in Stevenson’s voice now. 

“Was the gas lighted?” 

“No. The daylight-” 

“It was black night at the time of her death, as the 
autopsy showed, and yet Fannie Gillespie never slept 
without a light! She didn’t get up and hang herself and 
then turn the gas off, either! She was afraid of the dark, 
it was almost a mania with her, born in her! That nurse 
across the way saw the light put out in her room, but it 
was the murderer’s hand did that! Fannie never killed 
herself, there in the darkness!” 

The detective swore softly under his breath. 

“Who was it?” he demanded hoarsely. “Who killed 
her? Where is he?” 

“North and I will have him for you to-night,” Henry 
promised in a quiet tone. “I’m offering to hand him over 
to you, evidence and all. Do you want him ?” 

“Do I want my right eye?” Stevenson ejaculated. 
“Lead me to him, Jordan!” 

“All right. North’s coming to my room to-night right 
after dinner so that I can tell him what I’ve been doing, 
independent of him. Another fellow will join us later, 
maybe more, and I’m not even going to tell North that 
you’re there, hidden, for he isn’t good at bluffing and he 
might give it away by his manner to the others. Come 
about five and I’ll let you in myself so the rest of the 
household won’t know you’re there, and if you want to 



STEVENSON RECEIVES AN OFFER 253 

bring any of the boys with you I can hide you all in my 
closet or the bath on the same floor. I’m going to lead 
the way to another room in the house, on the top floor. 
You understand? I’ll give a key to a certain man to 
open the door and that’ll be your cue to get busy. Nab 
him while the nabbing’s good, for he won’t hand himself 
over without a fight for it, or perhaps even an attempt 
to cheat the chair!” Henry rose. “Remember, Steven¬ 
son, the man to whom I give the key.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


HENRY KEEPS HIS WORD 

SUPPOSE we might have gone to a restaurant 
I somewhere to have the talk and meet the other 

A fellows, Ed, but I thought this would be better 
if by any chance somebody is watching me.” 

Dinner was over at Mrs. Horton’s that night and the 
rest of the boarders had scattered for diversion or rest, 
but the two young men were seated comfortably smok¬ 
ing together in Henry’s room. 

“Somebody watching you, Henry?” Ed looked up 
quickly. “The authorities won’t bother you-all any 
more after failing once to get you held fo’ trial even if 
they’re sho’t-headed enough to think still that you had 
something to do with it!” 

“I don’t mean the police.” Henry raised his voice a 
trifle as the door of his clothes closet creaked. “I’ve got 
an idea that somebody is enough interested in what I 
may be doing from purely personal motives. I confessed 
this morning that I’d been holding out on you, Ed, but 
the truth is, I was a little bit nettled when I talked with 
you Saturday night and found you were so ready to think 
the same as everybody else seems to, that it was suicide.” 

“My dear Henry, how could I know if you were keep- 
254 


HENRY KEEPS HIS WORD 


255 

ing something back?” There was mild reproach in Ed's 
tone, and Henry nodded understandingly. 

“I told you I'd learned a lot of trivial things from 
Fannie’s brother that made me more sure than ever she 
never killed herself, but when you didn’t seem to take 
any stock in it I didn’t tell you one certain thing that 
proved it; I made up my mind I’d wait and confound 
your skepticism with the whole truth!” 

“And you’ve got it now?” Ed asked eagerly. “What 
proved to you-all that Miss Fannie was murdered!” 

“The man who did it was careful not to leave any 
tracks behind him, but he was too careful, and there was 
something about her that he didn’t know. He made one 
mistake; he turned out the light!” 

Ed stared as Stevenson had done that morning. 

“What had that to do with it?” Surprise wiped the 
slow drawl from his tones. 

“Everything! It proved some one else was in that 
room, for Fannie never turned the gas out herself! She 
hadn’t slept or been in the dark for five minutes in all her 
life. She couldn’t stand it from birth; she was marked!” 

“Good—Lord!” Ed ground out his cigarette stub in 
the ashtray. “Who in the world would have thought of 
that? Still, it isn’t exactly proof. Miss Fannie may 
have lost courage, at the last. They say women do. She 
may have turned out the gas the ve’y minute before she 
stood up on that chair-!” 

“Still doubting?” Henry leaned forward. “What if 
I told you, Ed, that I knew why she was killed? I’ve 
got the proof, the thing she was killed for! I know the 



256 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


man who did it and so do you—at least, you’ve heard of 
him. I talked with him only the other day!” 

“Are you in earnest, Henry?” Ed’s voice had dropped 
to a whisper, but the other’s lifted a little more and he 
replied very distinctly. 

“In dead earnest! Shall I tell you about it now, de¬ 
scribe the crime to you as I’ve reconstructed it ? On the 
Sunday before Fannie’s death she found a ring with a 
single large diamond in it down in the sand at Knicker¬ 
bocker Beach. The man who was with her told her it 
was a fake, but it happened to be the real thing, weigh¬ 
ing over three carats and worth more than a thousand 
dollars.” 

“A ring!” exclaimed Ed. “How do you know ? Who 
told you about it and that it was real?” 

“The woman who lost it there only a few hours before 
Fannie uncovered it. I’ve found the ring and she has 
identified it; I’ve got a description of the man—but I’ll 
tell you that when I come to it. The man who actually 
killed Fannie knew the ring was genuine the first time 
he laid his eyes on it and he made up his mind he’d get 
it. A thousand dollars more or less don’t seem very 
much to take a human life for, but murder’s been done 
for a much smaller amount than that, and this man 
needed a few hundred, needed it pretty bad! 

“I don’t think he planned to kill her at first, though; I 
think he meant to get possession of it in an easier way 
than that and with less risk of being caught. He didn’t 
feel a bit squeamish about wiping her out if the show¬ 
down came, but he wasn’t taking a chance himself of 


HENRY KEEPS HIS WORD 


257 


going to the chair! Maybe he thought he could get the 
ring away from her in some manner that would lead her 
to think she had lost it and she wouldn’t make much fuss, 
because she thought it was an imitation all the time, re¬ 
member. I don’t believe she ever learned the truth. 

“Now, this is the way I’ve reconstructed what hap¬ 
pened that night. The fellow broke in her room with 
some clothesline to tie her up and gag her if she woke. 
She knew him, of course, but I figure he may have rigged 
up a mask or something so that she wouldn’t recognize 
him. What he thought about the gas being lighted and 
why he took a chance with it on, I don’t know, but he did. 

“Fannie woke up and recognized him! She let him 
see that she knew him, and that is what cost her her 
life! Before she could move, before she could utter a 
single cry, he had jumped for her and drawn that rope 
about her throat. He knew there was no alternative but 
to kill her, and he must have tightened that clothesline 
and held it till she stopped struggling and fell back limp, 
dead!” 

“God!” Ed moistened his lips, shuddering. He sat 
facing his host, with his back turned squarely to the 
closet door, but it had opened an inch or two, and Henry 
could feel Stevenson’s eyes on him as he continued: 

“I guess he felt pretty sick then, Ed; not because he’d 
taken the life of a defenseless young thing like that, for 
such a beast wouldn’t know what remorse was, but be¬ 
cause it was murder! He knew what he d be up against 
if he was caught, and it was more than he d bargained 
for!” 


258 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“But—but Miss Fannie wasn’t strangled!” gasped Ed, 
his face livid with horror. “She was found hang¬ 
ing-!” 

“Yes,” Henry nodded. “It was then the bright idea 
must have come to him, to make the whole thing look like 
suicide! I don’t mean that he stood there calmly think¬ 
ing the thing out with her poor body lying before him, 
I think it came to him in a flash! Fannie could have 
gone up on the roof and cut a piece off that clothesline 
as easily as he or anybody else could, and as for the 
reason—well, a girl as pretty as she was and receiving 
attention from so many fellows might have had one love 
affair among the rest that turned out unhappily. 

“I don’t know whether he thought of that or not, but 
a dozen different motives might have been thought of for 
her suicide and he probably figured there wouldn’t be 
much stir about it. Fannie was a business girl just 
boarding here in town and nobody’d care enough to in¬ 
quire too closely into her death. The police would be 
notified, of course, there’d be some questions asked of 
the folks in the house and her friends, a couple of lines 
in the papers, and then the body would be shipped back 
to her home, wherever it was, and that would be the end 
of it. 

“Maybe that didn’t all strike him till later; I guess he 
must have worked quick, once the idea came to him. He 
fixed that rope around the high brass post on the head- 
board of her bed—you’ve never seen it, Ed, but I did 
when I followed the policeman in after he broke down the 
door, and it reaches almost to the ceiling. He couldn’t 



HENRY KEEPS HIS WORD 


259 


have had a very easy time of it stringing her up there, 
callous and hardened as he was; it must have been grisly 
work, a ghastly job! Her body was so soft and help¬ 
less, almost as small as a child’s-” 

“For God’s sake, Henry!” Ed covered his eyes with 
his hand, and his companion saw beads of perspiration 
start upon his forehead. “Your description—it’s fright¬ 
ful! No one could be such a—a fiend!” 

“Somebody was!” Henry returned. He glanced un¬ 
easily toward the closet, for it seemed incredible that his 
companion should not be aware of the heavy breathing 
which issued now so audibly from it. 

“Go on with what you’ve found out and don’t try to 
imagine the rest!” Ed begged. “It’s enough to make 
anybody see ghosts!” 

“I wonder if he ever does : —that man?” Henry 
shrugged. “Probably not; a fellow who could commit 
such a crime in cold blood wouldn’t likely be troubled 
with visions, Ed. He wouldn’t be as thin skinned as 
you and I! Anyway, when he’d finished, he wasn’t so 
affected by what he’d done that he didn’t remember to 
take up a chair and lay it down sidewise underneath 
where Fannie’s body was hanging in order to make it 
look as if she’d kicked it over, and if he hadn’t found the 
ring before she woke up and recognized him he must 
have taken it then, for right after that I figure, was when 
the nurse across in the other house saw the light go out! 
He couldn’t have done what he did in the dark!” 

“Go on!” Ed cried again. The door creaked loudly, 
but he did not heed. 



2&0 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Oh, he must have gotten out of the room the same 
way he got in,” Henry replied. “It was that afternoon 
when he pawned the ring.” 

“Pawned it?” Ed looked up quickly. “Henry, how 
in the world did you ever discover that!” 

“I found the ticket and learned enough to work the 
whole thing out to the end.” Henry gradually straight¬ 
ened in his chair. “I’m curious to know, though, what 
the man’s sensations were when the suicide theory, he 
had set the stage for so carefully, was dropped like a shot 
and I was arrested for the crime.” 

“He probably saw that it was only because of your 
letters, if he was as infernally clever as you make him 
out to be!” 

Ed started to light a fresh cigarette, but the match 
went out. “He wouldn’t have to be right smart to 
know you couldn’t be convicted on such evidence as 
that!” 

“I don’t know about that; I think he hoped I’d be 
indicted and held for trial when he saw how easily the 
suicide theory was set aside,” Henry remarked. “Then 
if a verdict had been brought in against me it would have 
put him forever beyond the reach of suspicion.” 

“That’s too much!” Ed shook his head and struck 
another match. “You—you-all had me going, as you 
say up No’th here, but it isn’t possible! Miss Fannie may 
have lost that ring in her turn and somebody else picked 
it up and pawned it. Then where would you be with 
that horrible notion of yours, Henry? I’m not trying to 
discourage you, but the more I think about it the more it 


HENRY KEEPS HIS WORD 


261 

seems like you-all had imagined it! You haven’t ever 
told me who the man is you suspect!” 

“You haven’t asked me yet how I think the man got 
in and out of the room,” Henry reminded him. Some¬ 
thing like a muffled snort came from the depths of the 
closet, but it was promptly checked. 

“Through the window, as the detective claimed?” Ed 
smiled. 

“No. He unlocked the door and walked in.” 

“ ‘Walked in!’ ” The other stared again. “But the 
door was locked on the inside!” 

“The key stuck out through the lock and he gripped 
the end of it with a pair of pliers and turned it!” There 
was a rising note of excitement in Henry’s voice as he 
sprang from his chair. “Come on and I’ll show you 
how it was done! I meant to wait till the other fellow 
showed up, but maybe he won’t come and we’ll have to 
go after him. I want to convince you thoroughly and 
no one will see us; there isn’t anybody above the base¬ 
ment, except Mrs. Horton, and she’s safe in her own 
room.” 

He led the way to the hall and up the stairs and Ed 
followed, fastidiously reluctant and voicing a low, almost 
whispered, protestation. 

From the bedroom they left there issued a stocky figure 
and at the same moment two more, red-faced and burly, 
emerged from the bathroom. With the agility of cats all 
three crept in the wake of the couple ahead, making no 
slightest sound. 

“The marks of the pliers were on the key itself, 


262 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


Ed,” Henry cut short his companion's murmurs as they 
reached the top floor and paused before the small rear 
door. “I saw them myself when I examined it before 
the detective took me away, and they’re on it yet!— 
Look!” 

As he added the last word in a loud, ringing tone, he 
drew a key from his pocket and there on the threshold 
of the dead girl’s room he thrust it into the hand of 
Edgar North. On the instant three stalwart figures 
sprang from behind the young Southerner and hurled 
themselves upon him, and a shot hurtled up to the ceiling 
as a gleaming revolver was sent spinning from his grasp. 

A shrill shriek and the sound of hurriedly opened doors 
came from below as North flung back his head and stood 
panting and dishevelled in the hands of his captors. 

“You’re under arrest, Flash!” Stevenson exclaimed, 
his low, sharp tone cutting through the rising tumult from 
downstairs. “You killed Fannie Gillespie!” • 

“Sure I did!” A slow smile broke over North’s dark 
face. “It took your fall guy, though, to get the goods 
on me! I throttled her for the sparkler, but I overplayed 
when I put out that light!” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE LIGHT ENDURING 

TE talked, all right!” Stevenson strode into a pri- 
I vate room at headquarters and closed the door 
with a slam. “I’ve seen his kind before. He 
knows it’s all up with him and he’s proud of the way he 
pulled it off and got away with it, all this time.” 

Henry shivered. He felt cold and sick, now that it 
was over, and the nervous reaction was almost over¬ 
whelming, though with an effort he pulled himself 
together. 

“You called him ‘Flash’!” he exclaimed. “How was 
it you recognized him then and not before?” 

“I didn’t!” Stevenson confessed. “One of the boys 
with me, though, has just come back after nearly a year’s 
work on a case in New Orleans and he spotted him, the 
minute we followed you up the stairs, from his pictures. 
He’s badly wanted down there.” 

Henry nodded. 

“He’s ‘Nico’ Norton, alias ‘Flash Nick,’ isn’t he? I 
saw his picture myself, over in the Rogue’s gallery in 
Brooklyn this afternoon and recognized him at once. 
I’d gone there on the off chance that he might have a 
record. It’s grand larceny in half-a-dozen different 
states, isn’t it?” 

263 


264 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“Yes. He told me just now that he had to beat it back 
up here and there was some question about a split on the 
last trick with some of his pals. He was in bad, and it 
meant a bullet or a knife in his back if he didn’t produce 
eight hundred dollars in three days. He’d gone broke, 
gambling, and he was at his wit’s end when he went to 
that dance down at Brewster Hall, on the seventeenth of 
May, to see what he could pick up. It was a public ball, 
Jordan, the kind anybody can buy a ticket to, and it was 
apt to draw a lot of women with bunches of jewelry.” 
Stevenson sat forward in his chair. “North—or Norton 
—didn’t have any luck there, but he spotted Fannie 
Gillespie with a thousand dollars on her finger; he could 
tell that rock among all the phony stuff she was wearing 
and he trailed when Jack Rogers took her home.” 

“Then it was he whom Mrs. Moffat saw in the area¬ 
way?” 

The detective nodded. 

“He’d never seen the Gillespie girl before, of course, 
but he spent the next couple of days spying out the lay 
and then presented himself as a new boarder. Thursday 
afternoon, before he’d been in the house an hour, he heard 
Agnes arguing with the cook about hanging clothes up 
on the roof and she gave him his idea. He went to the 
roof early in the evening and got the rope, and the rest 
of the affair worked out exactly as you described it to 
him!—By the way, your knife was down in the dining¬ 
room on the mantelshelf and he took it as he left the 
dinner table. That Agnes must have carried it out of 
your room and forgotten to return it. North used it to 


THE LIGHT ENDURING 


265 


cut the clothesline and then threw it over into the yard 
of the house next door.—Now, Jordan, suppose you come 
clean and tell me how you happened to make us all look 
like two-spots down here?” 

“I don't know,” Henry responded gravely. “I don't 
know myself except that I owed it to her to find out!” 

He told his story up to the Sunday night when he 
began to suspect Benjamin Newell, and then added: 

“Of course, I saw only Newell behind it all, but sud¬ 
denly a fresh idea came to me. It must have taken 
pretty powerful hands to—to strangle Fannie Gillespie 
with that rope! When I went to see Newell he'd shaken 
my hand so hard I thought the bones were crushed, but 
another picture came into my mind, too; the picture of 
Ed North pulling that cork out of the jug on Saturday 
night with just a twist of his fingers! 

“Then I thought of what must have been done with 
the ring, and that it would have been as easy for North 
to have pawned it as Newell, and all at once I recalled 
something else! That pawnticket which had fallen out 
of his wallet that day he took me to lunch down by the 
river front and offered to help me find Fannie's mur¬ 
derer. I thought then that he acted more upset for fear 
I’d seen it, than just because it hurt his pride, and abso¬ 
lute conviction swept over me! 

“I made up my mind that he'd kept the ticket because 
he knew he hadn't got anywhere near the full value of 
the ring on it and he meant to take it out as soon as he 
was in funds and sell it for more, and it was up to me to 
get possession of it. 


266 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


“I dressed and went out to the nearest all-night drug¬ 
store for some chloroform to kill a dog—they weren’t too 
particular there, I knew, for I’d seen them passing out 
dope,—and I sneaked back into the house and hid on the 
stairs just outside North’s door for the light in his room 
to go out. I guess he wasn’t any too easy in his mind, for 
I’d been avoiding him for the past day or two, and maybe 
he figured I was beginning to get on to the truth. Any¬ 
way I could hear him moving up and down in there and 
finally when he did turn out the gas it was almost day¬ 
light. 

“I waited twenty minutes more, however, and then 
got in his room—you know my line of business and there 
aren’t many locks that could stand against me!—and 
clapped my handkerchief soaked with chloroform down 
over his face. I held it there till he stopped wriggling, but 
I don’t believe he actually woke up, nor knew any one 
was there; I think he figured the next day that it was just 
a nightmare, for he couldn’t even have looked for the 
pawnticket or he would have known that it was gone and 
beaten it. I got it out of his wallet easy enough, took 
my handkerchief and went out, locking the door with a 
twist of wire around the key. 

“In the morning I went to Uhlfelder and the old pawn¬ 
broker’s description fitted him to a T. North was the 
only stranger in the house, he come to Mrs. Horton’s just 
the afternoon before Fannie was killed, and the whole 
thing was clear.” 

“And we let it slip us!” Stevenson growled in disgust. 
“There he was right under our noses all the time, for he 


THE LIGHT ENDURING 267 

tells me he figured it wouldn’t be good policy for him to 
clear out right away!” 

“Well, it was that ticket, and the light being turned off, 
that put him in our hands,” Henry resumed. “This 
morning—no, yesterday!—I waylaid him after he left 
the breakfast table and made that date with him for the 
evening; and then before I came down here to you I went 
to that firm dealing in bonds for whom he worked and 
learned enough to prove what I suspected—that he only 
held down that job as a blind. The rest you know, Ste¬ 
venson. Of course he only sought me out after the 
grand jury let me go, and offered to help me if I was 
going to keep up the inquiry into Fannie Gillespie’s death, 
in order to watch me and know how near I was likely to 
come to the truth. I’ve got a pretty strong hunch that 
if I’d gone on confiding in him I mightn’t be here 
now to tell you what I have! I’m glad it’s all over, 
but for heaven’s sake keep me out of it as much 
as you can! You found out North was the murderer, 
I didn’t! I’ve had enough notoriety to last me a life¬ 
time and I’m only looking forward to his trial for one 
reason.” 

“What is it?” the detective asked. “The credit’s all 
yours, Jordan, and I’ll see that you get it, but what’s the 
idea about the trial?” 

“It’ll come up on the calendar before Judge Carberry, 
won’t it?” 

“Yes!” Stevenson looked his surprise. 

“I’m glad!” Henry drew a deep breath. “You see, 
I promised him on the night after I was set free that 


268 


BRIGHT LIGHTS 


I'd appear before him as a witness against the real mur¬ 
derer of Fannie Gillespie, and now I can keep my word!” 

“The first of May,” Mrs. Horton asseverated, “they're 
going to tear this house down with the others to put up 
a big storage warehouse, and I dunno's I'm sorry, for all 
I’ve been here more'n twenty years! I ain't had a happy 
minute nor a good night's sleep under this roof since I 
knew murder was done here, and the house had better be 
gone and take that memory along with it.” 

“You've made a great many people very happy here, 
though, during those years, Mrs. Horton!” Marian 
Gray's cheeks were delicately pink as she glanced across 
the shabby parlor at Henry, with a soft light in her 
eyes. “They'll always remember it, even when you've 
forgotten!” 

“Well, I guess my sister needs me most now, with all 
them children and a husband that can't keep them in shoe- 
leather,” she responded. “Besides, the whole household's 
going—you two getting married in April, and Myrtle 
going in vawdeville, and Mr. Darley taking his own 
bachelor rooms now he's in the firm. Mis' Moffat has 
connected up with a big Chicago house that's going to 
send her to Paris to do her buying instead of New York, 
and even Caroline’s got an ambitious streak; she's think¬ 
ing of opening a little eating-place up in her own neigh¬ 
borhood.” 

Henry laughed. 

“How about Agnes?' he asked. 

“Oh, I'll take her with me. She ain't got sense 


THE LIGHT ENDURING 


369 

enough to look out for herself unless I’m right at her 
heels.” The front door bell rang and Mrs. Horton rose, 
eyeing the two young people remorsefully. “I dunno 
how Fve got the heart to shoosh you out of the parlor, 
but there’s that dratted piano tuner!” 

In a curtained recess of the hall Marian and Henry 
lingered while a weazened little man with a worn bag 
passed them, and presently the maddeningly monotonous 
twanging commenced from the room they had just 
quitted, but they were oblivious to it. 

“Henry,” Marian whispered, “it must be hard for her 
to see the old house go!” 

“There are compensations,” Henry shook his head. 
“As long as she can find some one to mother, Mrs. Horton 
will be happy, and she is right about the house coming 
down. It’s better so.” 

“You are thinking of—the murder.” Marian looked 
down. “I feel sometimes as if we had no right to be so 
happy, Henry, while that poor girl who loved happiness, 
too, and bright lights, and all that they meant, should be 
shut away from it now forever!” 

“We can’t give them back to her by being unhappy, 
dear, and my debt to her memory is paid.—‘The bright 
lights and all that they meant?’ ” Henry quoted as he took 
both her hands and held them close. “They mean noth¬ 
ing, sweetheart! We have found the light that endures!” 


THE END 

































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